Progress Reimagined
by urapente
Summary: A new vision of one of the first scenarios in Mass Effect 2, Freedom's Progress.
1. Chapter 1

Despite the flowery description of the colony, Freedom's Progress did not immediately impress in person. Aside from the fact that the squad had landed somewhere inside the frigid winter period, the main population center was made up of the dead gray concrete and low-slung prefab pod habitat litter that comprised most young colony worlds. It was dark, so the promised "mountain vistas" were not on the menu. Neither, of course, were the colonists - the main ingredient of pretty much all colonies everywhere. The missing colonists lent a certain neutron-bomb aura to the whole place. Empty and depressing, but for no readily apparent reason. The howling wind did not do much to lighten the mood, either. The main problem was the colonists. Well, that's why we're here.

"Did you say something, Shepard?"

Miranda. Did he say that out loud?

"Ah...no. Nothing important. Do we still show no activity on scans?" It was a blessing nobody could see his ears burning inside the helmet. His stupid, uncomfortable helmet. All this research and they can't design one that fits right? Or maybe they didn't grow his skull back quite the same size. Alarming thought.

Jacob was staring vacantly into his OT. Shepard knew that it was an artifact of the neural interface, a kind of reality disconnect that some people experienced. That didn't stop it from being a little creepy.

"We're not near any source of EM activity above the background level expected for these idle structures, commander," Jacob said as the displays shifted quickly to show the results of other scans running both locally and down-linked from the ship. "However, data from orbit is showing an area to the north which has slightly higher levels. We can't get a precise location, could be something active inside one of these pods." He lowered the tool and seemed to return to the team. "It's not much higher, but it's the only aberration that we can see. Most of these are pretty heavily shielded."

Shepard nodded. They would be. Freedom's Progress' parent star was slightly variable, and there was some information in the codex suggesting it could be a low-frequency flare star. The corporations sponsoring these far-flung colonies were pretty careful not to be sued, even if most colonists had signed their lives away to escape the crowded city-states of Earth.

"Let's make our way in that direction then. Weapons ready, I don't want to spend another two years in the tank." Shepard drew an assault rifle from his suit webbing as Jacob chuckled softly. The rifle came to life as the grip molded to his hands. That ought to show up on some scans. He motioned Miranda and Jacob to stay low. "Move out."

It had taken some convincing on Shepard's part to make Jacob accept that Commander Shepard led from the front, always. He was relieved as both of his Cerberus allies-for-now fell in behind him with no audible complaints. Miranda definitely needed to stay back. How was that even armor? He supposed it must have some function aside from being painted on for decoration. Protection. From what, a stiff breeze? Technology again, probably. In any event, if Miranda was up front Shepard might be...distracted. Can't have that. Might impact The Mission, etc.

The unlikely squad of two goons from a reputed terrorist organization and one dead Alliance hero moved slowly and deliberately through the drab pods and looming concrete walls. Their footsteps echoed loudly in a silence punctuated only by the wind occasionally whistling around piles of junk and composite fences guarding the walkways. During the frequent pauses for Jacob to verify his scans, it was so quiet Shepard could hear the ice crystals from the light precipitation striking his visor. He could hear his heart beating a little faster than normal. At least, it was sort of his heart. It was grown by Cerberus, like so much of his body had been over the last two years. Coming to terms with what had happened and with what he might...be...was difficult to think about at this stage. He pushed it back into a corner of his mind. Wasn't it his mind? Ok - time to forget about that for now. Focus on The Mission, focus on those lost colonists.

"Commander." Jacob gestured towards a pod about a hundred meters away, accessed via a narrow walkway fronted by an unlikely looking picnic table and the requisite piles of junk that seemed to be everywhere. "The increased activity can be localized to that building there. I can't tell from here what's causing it, except to say it doesn't match any signatures for the standard equipment expected on this world."

"Off-world tech?" Miranda shifted uneasily, the first crack in a completely composed persona that Shepard had seen. "We didn't see any evidence of ships in orbit, or even in-system. No damage, thermal clip casings, nothing."

"Could be remnants of what passed through here, whatever caused this. A trap, maybe." Shepard felt a cold sweat break out despite the efforts of the suit to maintain its internal environment. Nerves. For the most part, he was able to keep it hidden from others who thought he was fearless while leading people into trouble. The truth, however, was that he always fought with a nagging self-doubt. A self-doubt inherited years and years ago.

He motioned for silence, indicated positions for his team - Miranda and Jacob to cover the door while Shepard investigated the pod more closely. A terse nod from both Cerberus operatives, and they moved into position as Shepard disabled the safety on his weapon and shuffled towards the pod, keeping low. The precip was starting to accumulate on the cold metal walkway, the crystals crunching beneath his boots as he approached. Hopefully whatever - or whoever - was inside that pod was not monitoring the situation outside too closely. They'd pick up an approaching Alliance engineer with powered up shields and weapons, and nasty facial scarring to boot. Shepard had seen himself in a mirror since leaving the Cerberus station. Anyone seeing him wouldn't necessarily think "that's a friendly" at first glance. Plus the scars itched and made him irritable. The helmet didn't fit right. He was sweating, and freezing, and working for a shadowy organization for possibly dubious reasons. He had experienced better days in point of fact.

Upon reaching the door, which was locked (typical), Shepard checked over his shoulder. Miranda had positioned herself behind a solid looking piece of discarded equipment with a clear line of fire, some twenty meters back. Smart. Jacob was quite a bit closer, as seemed to be becoming his norm in order to rush to Shepard's aid, but in good cover behind a crate that didn't look explosive...probably. He shrugged mentally. That's what shields were for.

Reaching into a compartment adjacent to his omni-tool, he removed what looked like a translucent vinyl patch with a cable and universal connector attached to it. Plugging the cable into the OT, he "sent" commands neurally down to the unit, causing the patch to seem to vanish in an instant, to be replaced by a glowing orange grid. Shepard grunted his satisfaction after running a couple checks on the assembly, reached over and slapped it onto what seemed the least shielded portion of the door. Antiquated, true...the same thing could be accomplished with the usual field projection on the OT. But the old wired device was nearly impossible to detect by counter-EM scans. The OT began to coalesce data and broadcast it tight-beam to the other squad members as well. The seconds ticked past as he tried to control his breathing, his anticipation. But nothing came. Other than validating the increased EM activity, the OT detected nothing that could be picked out of the noise.

He looked over his shoulder at Jacob with a raised eyebrow. Jacob shrugged, paused, and made a twisting motion with his fingers. Ah. True. Shepard turned his mind more fully onto the OT and observed the power levels being captured by the passively listening patch. He began sweeping known frequencies with pattern detection heuristics, seeking a match among those cataloged by Cerberus' sizable intelligence organization. First priority were races and governments with history of hostility to humans - Batarians, Turians. Geth. Nothing. They had been on station for ten minutes now, much longer and they would have to take a more direct approach. The computer was checking more unlikely sources now...and it stopped, an impression of a match buzzing in his brain as the display read "Quarian, modified, 15% probable (baseline 3%)." Quarian? He looked to Jacob, who shrugged again but seemed more interested and alert. Miranda maintained steady aim on the door and said nothing. A quarian suppression field here on Freedom's Progress?

"Ideas. This is unexpected," Shepard whispered, looking to his team. It felt silly to keep his voice down outside the heavily shielded pod but the situation warranted extreme caution if only for its anomalous nature.

"We're wasting too much time!" hissed Miranda. "The longer we delay here, whatever got to the colonists may be making its way farther from us! Quarian scavengers are unusual so soon after the colony went dark, but I can't say I'm surprised. I hear the fleet is growing desperate for resources. Still," she sounded disgusted, "to pick among the bones of the dead so quickly makes me sick. They'll be armed, but lightly. Let's take them by surprise."

Jacob shook his head. "The force that took the colonists is either long gone or undetectable to our scanners. The source of the emissions in that room might be from elements of that force, or it could be a trap set to slow any investigation team sent. It could be nothing. It could even be quarian scavengers." He squared his shoulders as he faced Miranda, nominally his superior. "I think we can spare the time to be cautious and investigate this further. It's the only lead we have at the moment."

Shepard nodded as he considered the viewpoints of his team. The presence of the field suggested someone or something opposed to being monitored. But who? And who were they worried about encountering with all of the colonists gone? A trap seemed the most likely option. There had been no ships detected, and it didn't make any sense for the group responsible for the disappearance of the colonists to leave behind any forces. If it was indeed a trap, it wasn't going anywhere. There was time to investigate further.

"Give me a few more minutes with this, Miranda...it's probably nothing, but Jacob is right. It's the only thing we've found here so far besides a lot of empty habitats."

Shepard could hear the underlying threat in Miranda's voice when she said, "It's your call, commander." He felt that her trust in his leadership, possibly even her cooperation might hinge on the outcome.

He put the OT's computer to work quickly, analyzing the field with the assumption that it was actually quarian technology as it appeared to be. If it was, it was more heavily modified than any he had seen. It seemed to be rigged to transmit data elsewhere, but as the computer approached detecting the carrier signal, it seemed like it was dancing away, evading a solid fix. Whoever had set this up, it was skillfully done. Somewhat smugly, he thought: clearly, they never expected to encounter someone like me. As the power level shifted away from the analyzed region yet again, Shepard carefully injected noise higher into the frequency band. Fifty-fifty chance of which direction the opponent's algorithm would choose. He guessed right, and almost shouted with vindication as the signal jumped back down from the noise squarely into the computer's sights and was locked in.

The true task had yet to begin, however. It appeared to be encrypted, and not with something a mere omni-tool could decipher. Shepard made a snap decision to risk detection and transmit the data to _Typhon's Pride_, the Cerberus militia vessel that had accompanied them to the system.

"Orbital control. I'm streaming an encrypted transmission from a noisy habitat module down here. If you get anything, kick it back down to us ASAP."

"Copy, commander. Analyzing now."

More waiting. He suddenly found the seams in the door fascinating rather than turning to witness Miranda's reaction. Luckily, he didn't have to wait long.

"Commander, the signal is comprised of a shifting megabit-width cipher with randomized key intervals. We can decrypt some of it, but only small chunks since we are doing this real-time. Sending now."

Control's voice was immediately replaced with horribly loud screeching and electronic noise. The whole team simultaneously reached up to turn their receivers down. With most of the feedback gone, they were rewarded with...mumbling?

"Uh, control..."

"Shepard, wait. Listen!" Miranda interrupted.

Frowning, Shepard listened intently to the noise. It was just that, mostly - noise - but eventually he heard a clipped part of a word. Then another. Nothing he could make out, but it seemed to be Standard with an odd accent. There was a burst of static, then " -ind him, somewhere ne- " followed by a grinding tone. More mumbling, but it definitely sounded like voices, even if they were muddied and scrambled. He picked out two distinct speakers. From the inflection, it sounded like an argument. Static, " -nough time for that. That ship wi- " mumbling. Then, there was a third voice, commanding, higher pitched. A loud "pop!" in his headset, an electric sensation that raised the hair on the back of his neck. Then there was nothing. At all.

"Control, status!" he shouted as he checked the readout on the patch - it was dark.

"Commander, no signal. Advi—" the voice trailed off into a violent burst of static.

Cursing, Shepard ripped the patch from the door, stood and ran from the platform. Too careful, and not careful enough. Several paces away he turned, targeted the lock mechanism with the OT and kicked an overload at it. As the cheap civilian security field disintegrated in a shower of sparks, he shouted orders to his team. Radio was useless now.

"Jacob to the rear, secure that door - Miranda with me, go! Go!"

As he ran back to the platform, he commanded a combat drone from the OT to follow Jacob around the back of the pod. Although the front door was unsecured, it didn't open as he approached. Panting, he searched the surround for...there. He shifted the assault rifle to cradle in his arm and ripped the access panel down, interfacing the tool with the revealed override in the same motion. Shouting and a heavy thud could be heard inside the module now. Had to take them before they could get into well prepared positions. Jacob could be through the back any second, right into an ambush. Cerberus or not, he wasn't going to get his team killed. Not this ti—

Flash. Orbital bombardment. Combat drops shrieking through the burning sky. Bodies of Alliance troopers everywhere, three or four deep anywhere there was an obstruction. The front of his uniform was glistening red - panic - blood, not his. Air torn with uncountable projectiles and energy bolts. Looking down. Radio screaming unheeded calls for reinforcements, medics, evac. Body limp in his arms, glazed eyes looking up, a twisted grin...

"Commander!"

Miranda's voice brought him back to lucidity. His eyes focused as the pod's door ground open, and he registered a sudden splitting headache. He stumbled back a step, grabbed onto the platform's railing.

"Commander..."

He found himself leaning back precariously against a flimsy rail, assault rifle dangling uselessly at his side. Staring down an assault shotgun's tri-barrel and three more assault rifles. Quarians in their ubiquitous body-enveloping suits stood there: four covering him and Miranda, two holding Jacob at gunpoint in the back of the room, face against the wall with his hands on his head. Scavengers? And so heavily armed? He hadn't wanted to believe Miranda's accusation, but she may have been right, and now she was the only one of them left with a shot. She nervously shifted her aim between the four suited figures, eyes darting between them. Shepard could see she was weighing probabilities. He had already finished.

"Stop, Miranda. It's no good."

"Drop it, Cerberus," grated the lead quarian in gray. He gestured at the floor with his weapon. Shepard let the rifle fall. Miranda's eyes were wide, and she held the pistol steady.

"But Shepard, we—"

"Shepard?" a voice somewhere behind him queried. A voice he knew — a white-hot lance of pain shot through his skull before he could complete the thought. Groaning as the world faded and shimmered, darkness closing on his field of vision, he turned as he fell, head in his hands. A moment became a lifetime as the hidden quarian came into view and recognition dawned.

It was Tali'Zorah that crouched besides the picnic table, omni-tool aimed in his direction but lowered slightly from an attack position. A well worn Alliance shotgun propped against the bench. It was hard to tell with the helmet, but he felt the shock, disbelief, and...something else in her eyes. Her suit was as he remembered it, but...no, it was different. The pale light from the two moons illuminated the patterned folds surrounding her helmet. It was beautiful, in a surreal way, this woman prepared to kill him and his team in some colony on the backside of the Terminus systems. But he felt a sadness as he looked at her.

All in an instant.

As he hit the ground and lost consciousness, there were many questions which could be asked. What were the quarians really doing here? What was _Tali_, in particular, doing here? What would they do to their captives? What did they know about the colonists? But Shepard could only think of one thing as he sank into the welcoming blackness.

How the hell did she get behind me?


	2. Chapter 2

The room Shepard saw as he opened his eyes was lit dimly by a console at the foot of the cot he was laying in. For a moment, he didn't move. There had been a completely unexpected encounter with a quarian scavenger team. Tali was there. Also, he was recently undead and working for Cerberus - Cerberus! - and this on a colony where all the occupants had vanished without a trace, with no evidence as to what had taken them, killed them, vaporized them, or whatever. He had passed out, had probably been captured unless Miranda had done some amazing work with that pistol. Now he was in bed. He grinned as he sat up. Some dream...

There was a loud rattle, a clang, and a dull pain in his wrist as he attempted to pull the covers down. He lifted his arms. Tarnished silver bracelets surrounded his wrists, chained to the sides of the cot which was, in turn, chained to a very heavy looking crate. Abruptly he noticed his omni-tool, armor, and weapons were missing. Turning to the door, he found it visibly locked from the outside with a field that was obviously not consumer-grade as the one on the pod had been.

Shepard decided that it might have been better to stay asleep as the reality of the situation slowly sunk in. He slumped back down on the cot.

Before he could spend too much time collecting his thoughts, the door lit green and whisked open. A quarian trooper entered the room, walking with the rolling, slightly springy gait of their species, and holding a bucket. With the glare from the room outside silhouetting him, Shepard couldn't tell if the soldier was one of those who had been in the pod when his team was captured. The trooper came up to the cot, looked at Shepard, and started when he noticed that Shepard was awake. The quarian had paused, holding the bucket like he was about to throw the contents. There were thin pieces of ice floating on the surface of the water within it. Inside the helmet, shimmering eyes like the cold blue points of light of a white dwarf looked back at him through the visor, emotionless.

"Lis-" Shepard rasped, trying to back away. He swallowed, raised a hand defensively. "Listen, I don't think that's necessa-"

There was a glint of something in the trooper's eyes an instant before he tossed the icy water full into Shepard's face. He gasped and spluttered as the frigid liquid ran down, as it soaked into the blankets and dripped into his eyes. Coughing and hugging his arms to his chest, he started to protest, but was taken aback by the raw hatred radiating from the man's stare. The soldier stood there a moment with the bucket dangling from two fingers. Suddenly, the visceral emotion seemed to depart, and he simply turned and strode from the room.

"He's awake now, sir." Shepard heard him report softly.

By the time the gray-suited officer entered the room, it had become next to impossible to control the shivering. He sat huddled and trembling as he realized this was the same one who had confronted him in the pod.

"Cerberus." the officer growled, arms crossed at the foot of the bed. He seemed tense and shifted from side to side.

"Shepard," he corrected. He tried to keep the challenge from showing in his voice.

The quarian stood for a moment, rocking slightly on his heels. Then, faster than Shepard could react to in his state, he was there, pushing firmly down on his chest with his gloved hand while moving his head close so quickly that the helmet nearly smashed into Shepard's forehead.

"What you call yourself is of no concern to me, Cerberus," he spat, "but you will tell me immediately where you and your cowardly terrorist friends have taken our charge!"

Shepard struggled against the man's hold, but he had better leverage and also wasn't chained to anything. He didn't need to fake his confusion when he responded.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm working with Cerberus, but only investigating the disappearance of the colonists here. We had no idea your team was present, we mean you no harm. Who are you?" He paused, trying to control his breathing as the officer continued to glare. "Why is Tali here?"

Briefly, the other just stood there, pushing him down. But then he relented, and Shepard took a deep breath as the officer moved again to the foot of the bed.

"That marine out there would like to kill you." he said casually, ignoring Shepard's questions. "It's his son that is missing, that you took from here. Keelah prevent him, but it would be most unfortunate if, in his desperation to find his legacy, he were to do something rash." Shrugging with mock sorrow, his eyes closed to slits. "But I can't be everywhere at once. We may have to leave you here alone when we continue our search. It wouldn't be hard for someone so determined to slip away from the party."

The threat was patently obvious. Things could turn even uglier, and he could feel that he was walking on a knife's edge. He spoke carefully, staring levelly into the officer's visor.

"If I knew where the man was, whoever he is, I would tell you. But I think we have a misunderstanding. We just arrived here. We are investigating the disappearance of thousands of human colonists, and it's possible that the same phenomenon is responsible for your missing quarian." He considered the risk of the next statement backfiring before adding, "If we don't communicate with our ship, you could find yourself surrounded by Cerberus operatives who are far less understanding. Let us help you."

'Gray' laughed harshly, a sound like a cough. "Your brave friends agreed to contact your ship and report all is well in exchange for your safety. They don't even know we're here, and they won't until it's too late. Try again, Cerberus."

"Listen, I've told you," he groaned as he shook his head, "I'm Commander Shepard."

"And I'm a fleet admiral."

"Where's Tali? I can prove it to her."

Shepard quickly saw that mentioning Tali again was a mistake as Gray leaned down over the bed and encircled his wrists with his three-fingered hands. The grip was unexpectedly powerful, and he winced as it felt like his bones would snap.

"Tali'Zorah has been relieved of her command," he said with an artificially light tone. "She was halfway to convinced that we should trust your friends in the other room simply because _you_ were there, lying on the ground like a sack of elcor dung. So eager to believe Shepard lives. She'll be dealt with when we return to the fleet, admiral father or no."

He was shocked. "Her command? What right do you-"

"_Bosh'tet!_" he snarled, moving in close again, "You're a copy at best, a bad copy. Shepard is buried. I saw the vids, the destruction of the Normandy from the escape pods, the state funeral. Full military honors for an empty casket, and quickly forgotten after that." He coughed another laugh, and continued more quietly. "By most, anyway. Some continued grieving."

Gray stood and released his wrists, turning to leave.

"Shepard may have been a hero, whether or not he was delusional about the so-called Reaper threat. From what Tali'Zorah says he could have been a friend to quarians." He paused. "Such a man would never - couldn't - work for an organization like Cerberus. That alone is sufficient to prove you are lying. She wouldn't listen, insisted we...enough." He waved his arm dismissively as he left the room. "Enjoy your last hours, Cerberus."

The door closed, leaving Shepard shivering and massaging his bruised wrists in the semi-darkness. That could have gone better. Still, he had gleaned some useful information. The quarian scavenger team was actually nothing of the sort. It appeared that they were looking for some unnamed young crew member. It didn't explain what they were doing in the region, or what the missing quarian had been doing on the colony, but he was actually slightly relieved that Miranda had been wrong about their intentions. Not that Gray had been terribly endearing. As he struggled to get into a more comfortable position with the chains and wet blankets, he considered what the officer had said. From the intercepted communications earlier, it was clear the quarians had already known about _Typhon's Pride_ in orbit above, and had probably logged their entry into the system as the ship had no stealth technology. It should have been obvious to whoever had access to the information that Shepard's team had landed after them and couldn't be responsible for the young quarian's disappearance. Something else was going on...but what? There seemed to be no love for Cerberus, more so than he would have expected, but was that enough to explain the blatant disregard for the facts?

And there was Tali to consider. His brow lowered. Why did his mind seem to keep pushing her back? He hadn't seen her since the brief glimpse when he and his team had been captured, but she was still likely the only ally they had among the quarians. She was in command before his team had been captured - not hard to imagine, really - but it had been taken from her. Because of him? From what Gray had said, it was more likely that Tali was just being cautious before jumping to conclusions about his team's purpose. It seemed a poor excuse to pronounce her unfit for command. _Some continued grieving_. Had Gray been referring to Tali? His thoughts began to drift back to engineering on the old Normandy. Tali's clear joy at having the opportunity to serve on his crew, to study the cutting-edge technology of the ship. As he tried to dig deeper into his memories, a dull throbbing began somewhere behind his left eye. Grimacing, he raised a hand to his forehead. What the hell? He felt exhausted. Maybe he needed more rest. Shepard was gone to the world before his head hit the flimsy foam pillow.

* * *

Shepard's eyes snapped open, a feeling of wrongness grating on his awareness. Inky blackness surrounded him. He blinked. Still asleep? Raising an arm, he waved his hand in front of his face. The chains rattled and he could feel the bracelet shifting on his wrist, but he could see nothing. He shimmied into position sitting up at the head of the cot and looked towards the door. Nothing. So the field was down too. A cold sweat broke out as he listened intently. There was no background hum of electrics, no voices from outside. Too quiet. In the darkness, he tested the strength of the chains as quietly as he could. Too quickly panting from the exertion, he forced himself to stop as he felt the sharp edges of the cuffs breaking the skin. Although they appeared to be low-tech, the bracelets and chains were probably secured with molecular bonds. They weren't coming off without the device that had closed them or an expert with a sufficiently upgraded omni-tool. Or a plasma cutting torch, which would be unpleasant. The weak point of his confinement was probably the cot he was chained to. Feeling around the edges of the bed, he wasn't able to find anything loose and the bar was too thick to bend or break without a krogan's strength.

A soft scraping sound made him freeze. It was nearly inaudible, would have been unnoticed if not for the total silence in the room. He felt panic rising like an approaching wave as he realized it was coming from the door. Of course! Cut the power, the lock is disabled and there would be no record of entry. Just a dead Shepard when the lights came back up. The quarians must have resumed their search, and the gray officer had made good on his threat to look the other way. He struggled to regain his composure. Think! If the marine was going to simply shoot him in the head, there wasn't much he could do. But if he intended to do it slowly, painfully, make it personal - Shepard's legs were not bound to anything. If he were to fake being asleep, took him by surprise...

The scraping sound stopped, and the door quietly slid open about halfway. He strained his eyes to see anything in the dim light admitted from outside. Someone entered the room silently, keeping low to the ground and closing the door behind them. He hadn't been able to see what the intruder was armed with, if anything. Shepard held his breath, but his heart was pounding so strongly that he was almost sure that the quarian could hear it. He lay completely still. After several seconds, he heard a blade slide slowly from its sheath as soft footsteps approached the cot. Shepard steeled himself for a likely hopeless fight to the death. He heard the man stop a couple paces short - just out of reach. A shuffling sound, a series of quick taps, and the quarian was revealed in the soft orange glow of an omni-tool, a slender molecular blade grasped competently in the other hand.

"What the he-"

"Ssshhh!" Tali hissed. It was Tali. Wasn't it? "Keep your voice down! There are still two guards outside, although they are busy dealing with a diversion your Cerberus friends have made." The last was said rather derisively. She pointed the blade squarely at Shepard. "Explain yourself, and quickly. Veetor's father has a minor infection thanks to some careless suit maintenance," her eyes flashed, "but it won't last long."

Shepard could only stare for a moment. This wasn't exactly the reunion he had planned. Then, nothing seemed to be going right lately. He took a breath.

"It's me, Tali. Commander Shepard," he whispered.

Tali's eyes narrowed, and her voice quavered with indignation. "The Shepard I knew is dead, spaced and lying in a frozen grave on an unexplored world. If you would dare to claim that _you_, working for _Cerberus_ of all things, are that heroic man - you had better convince me now that this isn't some Cerberus ruse, or this conversation is over and that marine won't have to kill you himself." her grip tightened on the knife and she stepped aggressively towards him. She was going to make it very personal. "I am Tali'Zorah. You have no right to call me Tali."

Shepard's mind raced. Earlier he had been confident he could prove to her that he was who he said he was. But how did he know that? What if the quarians were right, what if the Illusive Man had created a clone? Implanted memories, personality? It was easy enough to make him look like another man. He had no idea if Cerberus actually had the technology to cause him to think he was someone else. What if he was meant to think that, but was...programmed to do something else? Miranda claimed he wasn't under any artificial compulsion...but how could he trust her, after all? Why spend two years and billions of credits to bring back one man?

"I'm losing patience, _bosh'tet_," Tali warned. Her body language, tension, the look in her eyes suggested she was about to strike. It was now or never.

"I...I can't explain fully. I promise you, I believe I am Commander Shepard." A lie. He was uncertain. "It was...I nearly died, Tali'Zorah. I'm not sure I understand everything, but Cerberus found me. Saved me. Spent two years rebuilding me in a tank, in a lab. They said there was not much left. I've got cybernetic parts, now." He carefully sat up in the cot, making no sudden movements. "It's the truth. As far as I know."

Tali didn't relax, but didn't advance on him, either. "If you're Shepard, if you're really Shep-" her voice broke, and she shook her head angrily, regaining her composure. Glaring at him, she gestured with the blade as she spoke. It flashed cruelly in the amber glow. "I can't believe you. I know what I saw. You can't possibly be Shepard."

How was he going to prove he was who he claimed? He had been so sure of himself before. He tried to think back, deeper into his memories. Perspiration beaded on his brow. It was like finding thoughts in quicksand. He persisted, thinking back through the missions...Virmire...Noveria...too many people knew of those, not privileged enough...what was it? A conversation in engineering. A rite of passage...pilgrimage?

"What about it?" Tali asked. He sensed a tendril of uncertainty in her voice for the first time. He had apparently spoken the thought aloud. He kept talking, trying to force the memory to the surface.

"You were...separated from the fleet. On pilgrimage, searching for something of, something of value." The throbbing pain had returned in his head. He rubbed his brow and forced himself to continue. "I...there was...data. The geth data. You asked for it...did it help you, on your pilgrimage?" he gasped for breath, squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to ignore the pain and the dizziness.

The knife clattered to the floor and he heard Tali inhale sharply. Shepard opened his eyes and saw that the quarian had stepped back from the cot. His heart leaped into his throat - she looked as if she had seen a ghost. She was frightened of him, in shock.

"Tali-"

"Stay away from me!" she cried. "Y-you, it can't be. It can't be!" Her hands clawed at her helmet. Shepard's mouth hung open.

"Tali, I don't understand how they did it, either. But it's me. I am me." he said the words forcefully. "Tali..."

She had stopped, and stared at him with desperation in her eyes. After a silence that might have been seconds or minutes, she appeared to suddenly call on some reserves of fortitude, shuddered, and then straightened. Now...she appeared angry.

"You were dead." she said simply.

"I may have been," Shepard agreed.

"Now you're not."

"Apparently."

Tali nodded, and crossed her arms beneath her chest. She laughed softly...a gentle, musical sound, unlike the hacking of the gray officer. Shepard felt the corners of his mouth gradually turning up into a smile. Then she walked forward and backhanded him so hard his neck popped.

"W-what the f-" he stammered as he rubbed his jaw.

"Do you have any idea...any idea?" she asked softly, eyes shimmering, standing over him. "I thought you were gone. I knew you were gone. I was..." her voice trailed off.

"I'm sorry. Tali, I'm so sorry." He tried to look into her eyes. Tali quickly looked away.

"I'm sorry, too. But...you deserved that."

Really?

"Sh...Shepard, I know this is sudden but I think I may have located Veetor. For some reason, he has reprogrammed all of the defensive mechs to fight us. I'd like to ask for your help. I can't let Prazza get to him first." She didn't face him. Shepard sighed. He had other things on his mind than the mission at the moment, but he resigned himself to the fact that he had to resolve the situation on Freedom's Progress first.

"Ok. First, who is Prazza? Who is Veetor?"

Tali turned, surprise in her stance. "They didn't tell you anything?"

"Besides threatening me and accusing my team of kidnapping Veetor, I guess that's who they were talking about, no." It was Shepard's turn to look upset.

"Oh." Tali glanced at the floor briefly, then met his gaze. "Prazza took command from me when I demanded that we question you and your team before deciding on your...disposal. I'm not sure what he's up to, but I have my suspicions. I'll explain that later." She rolled her shoulders, then bent down to recover her knife. Good grief.

"I don't always have to lead from the front."

She turned as she stood. "Pardon?"

"Nothing. So, Prazza must be the quarian I spoke with earlier. In gray? Real asshole?"

Tali nodded. "Yes. He is...well, at first I thought he was a good man. He is definitely clever, but also vindictive. Knows what buttons to push. Very much 'for the good of the fleet'."

Shepard smiled. "Sounds just a little like someone I might know."

Tali glanced away, embarrassed. "I would never-"

"I know, don't worry. So, if they found Veetor..." He looked thoughtful. "Isn't that a good thing?"

"Yes and no." She turned back to face him, rocking on her heels. "It would be good to have assurance that he is safe. But we don't know why he has subverted the defenses on the colony against us. For that matter, we don't know why the colony is empty. Except for Veetor."

Shepard put his legs over the side of the cot and leaned forward. "Why is he even here? Isn't a little strange for a quarian to be on such a small human colony? Come to think of it, what was your team doing out here?"

"Fair enough." She began pacing back and forth. Shepard didn't have trouble paying attention to every word. "Veetor was here on pilgrimage. He has always been...a little unusual, shy, awkward in large groups. He wanted to try and help a small colony, become useful to them, maybe learn something of value to bring back in the process."

"And you?"

"We are on a different mission. It's an important mission to the fleet." She was wringing her hands now as she walked, a nervous habit he was able to remember. She shook her head. "I'm sorry, but until we know more about...you and Cerberus, I can't say more."

That hurt a bit. "I understand. But what brought you here?"

"Originally, we were just going to drop off an automated cargo drone. With suit replacement parts, antibiotics, some food items and tools he had requested." She stopped, crossing her arms again and bouncing lightly on her toes. "But when we arrived in-system, there was no welcoming hail from the colony. We couldn't raise anybody. We chose to investigate further while the ship went on to our final destination for initial reconnaissance. We didn't expect to find an empty world."

Shepard nodded, wiped his hand across his forehead. The headache had gone. "So, what can I do to help? You might have to cut me loose, though."

Tali smiled. At least, her eyes were smiling. "Yes. I can do that, Shepard. We can't let Prazza take Veetor. Not until I understand what he is really up to. You, your team, and a couple of marines on my side - we need to get to him first."

"You have our gear?"

She shook her head sadly. "No. They've stowed it on the shuttle, we'll never get in there undetected. But there is a way."

"I'm listening."

Tali walked over to the bed, reached out - hesitating briefly - and gently held his wrist. He wondered if she had the same crushing strength as Prazza in those hands. Shepard felt goosebumps as she began to work on the bracelet with her OT.

"The chains are actually stronger." she said shyly. "Well, this was not a salvage operation initially. But once Prazza took over, he had the marines raid the colony security force's armory. There was some armor stored there that will fit humans, and some weaponry. Not much in the way of heavy weapons though, unfortunately. And the armor is much lighter than what you were wearing when they took you."

Neither of them said anything for a while as Tali concentrated on the gentle glow of the Tool. Eventually the bracelet made a sharp "click" and separated into two halves, falling away. Before she could move on to the next one, Shepard grasped her hand in his. Tali quickly looked up and their eyes met. He felt as if he had been given a jolt of electricity as he tried to look past the violet visor and read what he saw there.

"It's fortunate you were here, Tali. I...it's really good to see you."

Her eyes glittered inside her helmet. She looked down at their hands, interlocked her fingers with his own, and embraced him firmly. It felt warm, welcoming. Although it could just be the suit.

"It's good to have you back, Shepard," she whispered, something in her voice that he couldn't quite interpret. Sadness? He had felt it himself the first time he saw her. He wasn't sure he understood why.

They were interrupted by the door crashing open. Tali let Shepard go immediately, and whipped around with the omni-tool. As she recognized the pair that had entered the room, she lowered it, relaxing slightly.

"Well, this is unexpected, commander." Jacob laughed, holstering the borrowed pistol. Miranda didn't do the same, but she didn't aim precisely in Tali's direction, either. Both were in white riot armor and blue helmets with flimsy looking visors raised.

"I guess your little diversion went off better than expected," Shepard said, grinning widely.

"You could say that. Got something for you," he said, and tossed him an abused looking white helmet. He caught it with his free hand, turned it over. Worn, and it smelled a little musty, like it had been in storage too long. The yellow visor was cracked. Oh well - beggars can't be choosers. He placed it on his head. To his complete surprise, it fit perfectly. Shepard's smile went wider, and he turned to Tali who had begun wringing her hands again.

"Let's get this other bracelet off, Tali. I think this day is suddenly looking a little brighter."


	3. Chapter 3

Shepard cinched the riot armor breastplate snugly against the Cerberus uniform, pulling the straps tight but not so much that they restricted movement or breathing. He stood up from the cargo crate he had been sitting on, and rotated his torso back and forth, hands on his hips. The armor creaked and he felt it pull on his shoulders slightly, but considering it was a one-size-fits-all design it was acceptable. He moved his arms around, bending at the elbow and testing the range of movement back to front. Fine.

"I'll tell you what I'd like to know right now," he said as he sat back down, looking meaningfully at Miranda, "Why do I keep getting these headaches?"

"Well, I have some ideas..."

He sat back on the crate and rested his elbows on his knees, settling his chin on his hands. "Do tell."

Miranda was working through her own armor fitment as she answered: pacing, crouching and standing. "Your eyes are cybernetic."

Not surprising the originals wouldn't make it. "So?"

"To get the necessary power, we had two choices. We could use an electrical source, which would require external power cells somewhere. They could run down or be damaged. The weight for redundancy seemed prohibitive." She removed her helmet after trying to adjust the way it sat on her head, looked at it distastefully.

"The other choice, then. Was it chemical?"

"Something like that. It's you." The corner of her mouth turned up as she put the blue helmet back on. "We're using the same processes your body uses to power itself. Basically, as long as you are functioning biologically, your eyes also will continue to function. We remove one single point of failure, power cells, and replace it with another - your life."

"Fascinating." he said dryly, "But what does that have to do with passing out at inopportune moments?"

She gave him a disappointed look. "You should be able to deduce that, commander. Parasitic power drain."

Shepard waited.

"Look, it's like this," Miranda sighed, "we established a baseline for power draw based on your biological activity profile. But this was done while you were in the tank." She raised her eyebrows to question his understanding.

He nodded.

"Ok. Right now, you're not in the tank. You're doing a great deal more than I would have recommended at this early stage. Your body is still acclimating to all these changes. Frankly, I'm surprised there haven't been more problems." She slipped her feet into rugged looking armor that went over her boots. "The cybernetic equipment is also adjusting, but it appears the eyes are more problematic."

"But I've been running around since I woke up, with that attack on the station. I didn't experience any problems until we arrived here."

"When you passed out the first time, in front of the pod. What happened?" she asked curiously. He wondered how directly he should answer.

"I was...reminded of past events. And opening the door, I guess, but I wasn't using any tech at the time."

Miranda chewed her lower lip as she nodded. "Memories. I was concerned something like this might happen." She sat on a crate across from him. "The best way to describe the condition of the contents of your skull when recovered would be as intact but in 'deep freeze,' we were lucky there considering the condition of the skull itself." she said as she leaned back against the wall. "In order to defrost the soft tissue without causing significant neural damage, we needed to use some chemical processes and techniques that are, to put it mildly, somewhat experimental."

He felt his stomach lurch. "You mean to say I've got brain damage?"

"Not exactly." She smiled gently. "We were able to avoid any permanent damage or scarring, but there was a...how do I describe this. Think of it this way. Some of your deeper, more entrenched memories...with those, there was a sort of...crystallization of the synapses that occurred."

He motioned for her to continue.

"Well, when you hit upon these buried memories, your mind is working at a fever pitch to break down the barriers. I think that is causing your eyes to lose power. When they try to compensate, it competes with your brain for resources. And you get headaches, or pass out."

"That's it?"

Miranda nodded. "That's it."

Shepard grimaced. Maybe power cells would have been better. "Good enough. Is the effect permanent?" He stood and began rummaging through a pile of armor to find protection for his lower legs.

"Your eyes and brain will adapt and work better together eventually. We also expect the 'crystallization' to diminish over time. You have to remember, you've been very active for someone who was within a micron of being completely dead not too long ago." She reached into a box next to the crate and jabbed Shepard in the shoulder with a hypo that she removed from it.

"Ow! Would you please stop doing that?" he exclaimed, rubbing the shoulder and looking back at her with some annoyance.

"That should ease the effects for a few hours. You might notice your pulse being elevated a bit."

"Thanks," he muttered, returning to the search for armor. "I hope you didn't get the last set. I like my shins."

"Quarian armor might fit for that," Tali suggested, entering the room with Jacob following her. "It will probably go over your knees, though."

"There's more of the security forces' gear out on the walkway, commander." Jacob laughed. "I think we can avoid the mix and match."

Shepard smiled. More reasons for that than the armor. "Good, good. Any luck on armament?"

Jacob reached behind his back and removed a shotgun from the webbing. "Just this. The rest is small arms, pistols of varying caliber. The search team has the rest of the weapons. The two guards had this and an electrical stun device." He rotated his left arm and massaged the shoulder. "It didn't have much of a punch."

He nodded thoughtfully as he sat back down. Both the firepower and protection they had available were sorely lacking in comparison to the quarian squad. It should hold up fairly well against the mechs though, assuming they were civilian models. The best plan of action was probably to simply avoid the marines and extract Veetor while avoiding confrontation. He looked up as Tali stepped forward.

"Shepard, I've explained the situation to the guards. They aren't happy about being beaten by two unarmed prisoners," she laughed, "but they seem to be willing to work with us to find Veetor. They weren't comfortable with the way Prazza had taken command."

"I see. You had some concerns about Prazza's intentions as well, earlier. Do we have time for you to fill me in?"

"Well..." she shifted her stance from side to side, and inclined her head pointedly towards Miranda and Jacob.

"Ah...commander, Miranda and I will see if we can't make nice with the guards, maybe get some more information on the quarian team." Jacob said, grabbing Miranda by the arm and heading for the door.

"W-wait, Jacob...commander!"

"Come on!" Shepard heard Jacob say in exasperation as the door closed, leaving Tali alone with him. He looked up at Tali pleasantly from the crate.

"Miranda is probably just a little overprotective. You aren't going to try to kill me again, are you?"

"Probably not," she teased slyly. She crossed her arms. "Am I in any danger?"

"Not from me." He made a show of inspecting his armor. "Not in this surplus junk. But what is the problem with you and Cerberus?"

Tali tossed her head. "Do you mean when they attacked a ship in the flotilla, or just the part where they are a racist alien-hating terrorist organization?"

"Um."

"Shepard, why are you working for Cerberus?" she asked, beginning to pace again. "Before, you were fighting them. Now you've joined them? How could you do that?" She opened her arms pleadingly.

"I'm not working for them, Tali. Not in the way you think anyway. Human colonies on the frontier of the Terminus systems have been going dark. The Alliance, the Council, they won't commit any resources to investigate it. Cerberus is the only organization willing to do something." He rubbed at the scar on his jaw. "They brought me back. This colony...I can at least give them that. I owe them at least that much."

"You owe them nothing!" Tali huffed, making a throwaway motion with her arm. She seemed to calm down though, and stopped pacing. "Still, it is...disturbing. This colony being so empty, with no signs of a struggle. And why only Veetor left?"

Shepard nodded, leaning forward. "That's what I'd like to know. That's why I think it's a good idea to work together on this. Miranda and Jacob seem like decent people so far, Tali."

She crossed her arms again, angled her head slightly. "I know. I had some time to talk with Jacob while we were scouting for more weapons and armor. But I still don't trust them."

"Then we're pretty much of the same mind about that. I don't trust Cerberus, Tali. But I won't turn down their support investigating these disappearances. The second they stop being useful in that regard, or if they turn this mission in the wrong direction...that'll be the end of it."

Tali met his gaze. He could sense the frustration and the battle going on in her mind. Whether to believe her old commander, her old friend; or to believe he had become a servant of Cerberus. An enemy. Several silent seconds passed, and he began to doubt whether his first impulse - that she would trust him - was correct. But behind the visor, Tali's shimmering eyes suddenly lowered. She sighed deeply, and when she lifted her gaze again it was warmer.

"I believe you, Shepard. I will work with you - you, Shepard, not Cerberus - to find Veetor. Maybe he will even have information on what happened here. I'm...sorry for doubting you."

He was taken aback. "Don't be. I would be disappointed if you had simply accepted that me working with Cerberus was not a problem." He leaned back against the wall again. "Now, what can you tell me about Prazza's motives?"

She turned away from him. "It's...it's personal. I'm a little embarrassed."

"We don't have to talk about it if it makes you uncomfortable."

"No." She walked to the crate, and sat down gracefully beside him. "I can talk about it." She turned to face him. He felt he could be lost in her eyes if he looked on them for too long. It was like looking at the pale moons that had been in the colony's night sky, shining softly in violet twilight.

He shook himself internally. Where was that coming from? He forced himself out of the trance-like state to focus on Tali's words.

"When you...when I thought you were dead, I was very upset." She paused. Shepard felt that she was leaving something out, but she continued quickly. "Prazza was there for me. At least...I thought he was," she said bitterly, "I don't think he ever cared for me, not really. There was physical desire..." her voice trailed off, and she wouldn't look at him. He didn't know what to say as the silence grew. But he felt she needed to tell the story, wanted desperately to tell someone.

"Tali...it's ok." He took her hand. Her fingers immediately closed around his own, almost painfully. "Please, continue."

She nodded, but kept her gaze averted. "We...I couldn't. He said it didn't matter. He was always there, but after a while he didn't even pretend to be interested in me. He was just...always there." She sighed. "I should have noticed before, but...I wasn't thinking clearly."

Shepard thought he was beginning to understand. "People saw you together."

Her grip tightened in anger. "Yes. People started talking, seeing something that wasn't there. They took it as a sign of favor with my father and I found him on missions with me constantly. He was on the fast track to becoming a ship's captain, groomed for leadership. Married to an admiral's daughter." She lowered her head further. "I didn't see it. Not for a long time."

He had thought he had reason to dislike Prazza before. Before he could let that feeling spiral out of control, Tali looked up at him again.

"Now with Cerberus in the picture, he has the perfect opportunity. He knows I would never be with him but he can use me as a stepping stone. If he removes me from command, implicates me as a Cerberus sympathizer," there was ice in her tone, "He would just cast it as my putting you above the safety of the fleet if that failed. And he would 'rescue' Veetor from the clutches of the terrorists and abandonment on a deserted colony world." The pale moonlight had been replaced with iron resolve. "That's why we need to get to him first. He would use Veetor to advance his own selfish interests."

Shepard nodded. "I get it. I don't think Prazza would allow us to leave here with any information regarding what happened either. I knew you, or he thought you knew me, and he made arrangements to have me killed. Miranda and Jacob would make good prisoners to take back to the fleet, given what you've said about Cerberus." He smiled at her. "We won't let that happen. Prazza won't get his way."

"Thank you, Shepard," she said gratefully, looking at him with relief. "This means a lot. I can't imagine him in command of a ship."

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm doing this for you, not for the fleet."

"An eye for an eye, Shepard?" Tali teased.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

As she stood, he could sense a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. How long had she been carrying that burden alone? He was humbled that she had chosen to trust him with her secret. It was hard to fathom the reserves of willpower in this woman. She was strong. He had known that from their first encounter on the Citadel. But he was beginning to perceive the true depth of her strength, her character. So much about Tali was entrancing. The way her emotions could show clearly from behind the visor. Her expressiveness when she talked about anything that interested her, how she couldn't be still. The way she gestured with her hands so animatedly, inclined her head, paced around the room. The way she moved when she walked. Good grief, the way she walked...

"Commander Shepard." She looked at him reprovingly.

Ah. He had been caught staring.

"I uh...it's just that you look..." Amazing. Gorgeous. Radiant. "...different."

Nice. Really great, Shepard.

"Oh..." she glanced self consciously down at herself, raising her arms. "You mean the suit?"

"Oh, yes. I mean...what happened to the old one? You outgrew it?" He coughed. Idiot.

"Not exactly. It's my father's fault. Since he doesn't usually have much time for me," she glanced at the floor briefly, "he buys me things. The suits we wear are very complex, since we literally live inside them. They cost a great deal to replace. Many of my people wear at most two suits their entire lives - one when we reach adolescence, and one when we have grown into adults." She tugged at the fabric surrounding her helmet. "Most of this suit is recycled from an old one, but it has been heavily modified with many new parts."

"Two suits? You must grow really attached to them, being in them for so long."

Tali shrugged, and Shepard thought he detected a flicker of sadness. What was that about? He kept getting a sense that something had been eating at Tali ever since he had seen her again. Something even deeper than the problems with Prazza?

"Some spend a great deal of time personalizing them." she said softly. "You don't often see anything too garish or permanent since suits are usually handed down, mostly just changing the colors, adding fabric flourishes like around my helmet." She touched the hood lightly. "Many marines will record their unit designations on their suits. There are a few that have so many that they have started using the backs as well, especially the ones inherited in military families." She laughed. The sadness had gone, or at least retreated from the surface. He smiled back at her and stood.

"Well, I think it looks wonderful on you."

Tali looked surprised at the compliment, and her eyes seemed to sparkle. "Th-thank you, Shepard. I'm glad you like it." She tilted her helmet thoughtfully. "Talking of marine suits reminds me, Giravi wanted to see you before we head out."

Shepard looked confused. "Giravi? That wouldn't be Veetor's..."

"Yes. He's still somewhat ill or he would join us. I feel terrible...but he really would have killed you, Shepard." Tali wrung her hands together.

"Well, I appreciate your caution. I'm sure he would have understood why you did what you did."

"I told him."

Of course she did. "I see. He's not...still angry is he? I mean, he knows I didn't kidnap his son."

"Yes. I explained to him about Prazza. Not," she interjected, seeing the crestfallen look on Shepard's face, "in nearly the same detail as I gave you. Just my suspicions about his plans on Freedom's Progress."

He nodded. "Alright. I'm ready when you are." He gestured for her to proceed in front of him. With some ulterior motives.

As they walked from the room and across the walkway, Shepard picked up a set of lower leg armor - green, did they even try to buy anything the same color? - and tucked it under his arm. He realized that it was going to be quite a bit more miserable outside without the self-regulating armor that was now hidden away in the quarian shuttle. The sun had risen, but the sky was dull and colorless, and snow fell thinly through the still, frigid air. Tali looked over her shoulder as they approached another pod.

"Tread lightly, Shepard. Giravi and Veetor share many traits. He is often...strange. You should probably know he doesn't have a ship name."

He chewed on the thought a moment. "How does that work?"

Tali paused outside the door, and turned to face him. Snowflakes lit on the cloth surrounding her helmet, others melted quickly away on her visor without a trace. Must be some kind of self-cleaning technology.

"You know we go on pilgrimage as young adults."

He nodded.

"Sometimes, they don't come back. Giravi is one such. He arrived at the fleet again five years ago, not with a gift to sign on with a ship's crew, but with an adolescent boy, nearly full grown - Veetor." She brushed some of the accumulated snow off of her cowl before continuing. "Nobody knows how he came to have the boy. Whether he fathered him, found him, kidnapped him. He calls him his son, but the doctors fitting him with a new suit say they look nothing alike." She crossed her arms beneath her chest and leaned back against the rail. "It's rumored he made his living as a mercenary or pirate, and the boy was the son of someone that he had killed. He took him and raised him. That's the story, anyway."

Shepard was shivering now, but wanted to hear the rest. "So what is he doing here?"

"The boy needed a new suit. That's why he finally sought the fleet. Giravi had patched it many times, but he had still outgrown it. He was probably days or weeks from a total suit failure." She shook her head sadly. "Very little of it could be recycled or passed on. Giravi had to assume the debt for a complete replacement suit. He is with the fleet expeditionary marines to work off that debt."

Shepard gaped at her in disbelief. "But five years ago?"

Tali nodded. "I told you that they were very expensive to replace, Shepard. The damage to the suit is probably a large part of the reason Veetor is so...unusual. He probably spent most of the last months before Giravi brought him back very ill."

"That's terrible." He had never really stopped to consider how vulnerable quarians were outside of their protective suits.

"It is. But Shepard, Giravi...doesn't seem like a bad man. I think whatever happened when he found Veetor changed him. He has always volunteered for the most dangerous missions, been at the forefront of any push. It's almost like he wants to trade his life for Veetor's."

Shepard shuddered suddenly, not just from the cold, as the words crumbled walls around his memories. Despite the hypo administered by Miranda, he fell towards the door. The onslaught of emotion was unbearable, a tidal wave that swept his awareness away from Freedom's Progress into a shattered bunker holding a dear friend's body in his arms. Past helpless colonists impaled on vicious spikes. Staring out a window on a shuttlecraft, burning a nuclear fireball on Virmire into his retinas. Running past the dead woman and her child in the assault on the Citadel. Gasping for air as he watched the Normandy in its death throes, so many escape pods still in their cradles. Always alone. He couldn't save them all. He was powerless to save them. The memories pulled him inexorably downward.

Come back.

Somewhere, swirling in the blackness, he sensed someone calling to him from even farther behind the walls in his mind. Pushing at the edges of his consciousness.

You did what you could. Nobody could have done more. Nobody else could have saved them. You did. Stop blaming yourself. Stop punishing yourself. You are a good man. I would be proud to call you Captain. You saved billions. Thank you, Shepard. Thank you.

He opened his eyes. Among the swirling flakes of snow, framed by the dead gray sky, was something of such exquisite beauty it took his breath away.

"Tali'Zorah," he whispered to the pale shimmering eyes that looked at him with concern from behind the gleaming violet visor.

"Shepard?" she said urgently, "What happened? Are you alright? You passed out again." She cradled his head in her hands and looked down at him.

He could only stare for a time. Groaning inwardly with regret, he reached up and gently disengaged Tali's hands, sat up, and came unsteadily to his feet. He dusted the snow off his armor and the exposed parts of his uniform. Turning around, he spotted the armor pieces he had been carrying, dusted the snow off of them as well and picked them up. He felt he had probably regained enough of his composure. He turned to Tali. She was on her feet again and peering at him curiously.

"It's something to do with the cybernetic implants." He pointed at his eyes with two fingers. "Parasitic power drain, Miranda called it." He paused. "I'd like to explain it to you sometime. All of it." He was surprised to find out that he meant it.

Tali looked confused. "Well, if you think I can help, of course I would be happy to listen."

You can.

"Let's talk to Giravi. I'm looking forward to meeting him, actually."


	4. Chapter 4

An enterprising quarian marine had taken some of the colony's grow lights and used them to turn the unheated storage space into a relatively warm and comfortable environment. Around ten or eleven cots and pallets were scattered about the building, and the room was divided by sheets that had been hung over electrical cables. Almost certainly one's gender determined on what side of the line a soldier slept. The makeshift drapes were not currently drawn. There were no sheets or blankets on the beds - Shepard supposed that quarians didn't have much need for them with their suits - and all were empty save for one in the far corner, somehow seeming to be isolated from the rest despite the close quarters. There was a quarian lying in the cot, resting with his back to them facing the wall. It was probably Giravi.

"Shepard, look," Tali said, pointing towards the opposite side of the room as they walked to Giravi's corner. He turned his head.

"Huh. Who would have thought."

Miranda was watching closely as a female quarian he hadn't seen before was drawing something on the back of some discarded packaging. Probably a map of the area. They were moving out soon and his entire team would be without their OTs, or shields, or weapons that were manufactured in the last few decades. With a paper map drawn on some unfortunate colonist's garbage. They were definitely going back to basics. The helmets at least had radios, but nothing that would reach _Typhon's Pride_ in orbit. If they were to find a more powerful transmitter on the colony they could signal the ship. While it was probably too late to call for reinforcements with the speed that things were going, the Cerberus vessel could at least interdict the quarian shuttle if Prazza tried to leave the surface with Veetor. They could not afford to lose the only apparent survivor from Freedom's Progress, and he didn't like the idea of destroying a shuttle filled mostly with quarians Prazza had hoodwinked into following him, but Prazza wouldn't know that so the bluff might work. He wasn't sure how precise the gunners on the Cerberus vessel were so a surgical strike to disable the shuttle in orbit was probably out of the question. The chances of Shepard's team preventing him leaving from the ground were also minimal at best. It was absolutely critical that they reach Veetor first.

Tali leaned down by the cot and tapped lightly on Giravi's helmet. The marine's armor creaked as he turned his head to see his guests and sat up unsteadily on the edge of the bed. Tali wouldn't look directly at him. Shepard glanced around, then pulled an overturned carton being used as a table across the floor in front of Giravi and took a seat, resting his elbows on his knees and holding his hands clasped in front of him. Giravi looked at him from behind a deeply scarred visor with still, emotionless eyes. His suit seemed to be in terrible condition. Its digital urban camouflage pattern was rendered mostly useless, riddled with bumpy, glossy blue splotches that were a result of the suit's self-repair functions. Shepard recognized the green isolation patch on Giravi's left arm from prior missions with Tali. They were designed to temporarily seal seriously damaged parts of the suit until more permanent repairs could be made, but its faded color and lifting edges indicated it had been there for quite some time. He would have assumed that being part of a military unit would entail repairs to a suit damaged in the line of duty. Then again, there was probably a lot he didn't know about the implications of being a quarian with no permanent home or crew.

"You are indeed Commander Shepard?" Giravi asked him in the soft, neutral voice he remembered from before.

"Yes. I am Shepard."

He found that he was truly beginning to believe it himself. Could such strong feelings have been implanted?

Giravi nodded and bent down to reach underneath the cot, dragging something heavy out from beneath it. Before Shepard realized what the man was doing, he faced him with a battered assault rifle. For a moment his mind only registered the fact that he had not seen one quite like it before.

"Commander!" Miranda shouted from across the room. She had been watching them, and she lunged for the obsolete pistol next to her on the pallet. The quarian guard looked on in shock, frozen over the map, as Shepard quickly signaled Miranda to stand down. Giravi's fingers weren't near the trigger.

Giravi seemed to ignore the entire incident and calmly removed the carrier for the rifle's thermal clips. He pushed the top one out with his thumb and held the heat absorbing cylinder out in his fingers to Shepard as if for inspection. Its reflection glittered crazily in his scratched and discolored visor.

"This one...was for you, before." He said it so softly that Shepard had to strain to hear him. Giravi pushed the clip back into the carrier, and seated it back into the rifle with a loud 'clack' that echoed in the tense silence. He held the weapon pointed towards the ceiling for a moment before presenting it to Shepard like an offering, palms open.

"Now..._this_ is for you."

After a moment's hesitation Shepard took the rifle from Giravi and hefted it. Heavy, as if it were fashioned from lead. Every operative surface that Giravi had handled on the weapon was polished and worn from use. The bore was larger than on an Alliance rifle...looked like it had pieces of an Alliance rifle in it, in fact, along with other unidentifiable pieces. He tested the grip experimentally. Although designed for quarian hands, it felt relatively comfortable as his fingers slipped into the oversize channels. He looked back at the marine, who had extended the three fingers on his hand.

"Three shot bursts only. You will get five bursts, maybe six in the cold, before it overheats. Do not try to exceed six, or the clip ejection may bind or jam."

Shepard nodded. Six bursts. Giravi wasn't finished, though. He gestured with trembling arms as he went on.

"To kill, aim for the base of the neck from the back, or the visor in the front." He tapped his own visor, still speaking softly. "If you hit them in the back of the neck, you can sever the respirator, or if you're lucky, the spine."

Shepard swallowed. "What if I don't want to kill them?" Tali glanced at him with an unreadable look, but Giravi continued before he could understand it.

"Risky. They will stay in cover, quarian marines do not often attack head on. You won't get as many opportunities as you will with head shots - they have to see you to kill you." He paused, and pointed to a thin seam in Tali's suit that went around the shoulder. Her eyes went wide behind the visor. "Many nerve endings here, and a weak point on the suits. Can easily cause a rupture. If the pain doesn't drop them, the panic of getting an infection will make them less of a hazard. They will make patching any damage a high priority." He looked back at Shepard. "If you can get behind them, the armor is basically non-existent behind the knees. Difficult shot, but will prevent them from being a threat." He rocked his head from side to side before continuing. "They will need to be very lucky. Any direct hit from that rifle is likely to be fatal if unshielded. I have upgraded the damage output over the years."

Shepard looked to Tali. She stood rigidly, staring at a point just above Giravi's helmet. Was she ready to accept the possibility of inflicting losses among her people? He was beginning to consider returning the rifle and finding another way when Tali appeared to notice him out of the corner of her eye. He raised an eyebrow tentatively, and she gave a slight nod. It was a brave decision, but one he knew she would regret if any of the marines were killed. He addressed Giravi again.

"Thank you. We will try and avoid direct confrontation with Prazza's team. But this should definitely make short work of the mechs."

Giravi only stared mutely. Apparently he was finished talking. After a few seconds had gone by, Tali turned to leave and motioned for him to follow. Shepard inclined his head respectfully to Giravi and began to head after Tali to Miranda, but before he could leave there was a panicked rustle as Giravi grabbed onto his arm. He stopped and turned back to face him, eyebrows raised inquisitively. For the first time since their encounter in the pod, Shepard saw a fleeting spark of emotion flash in the man's eyes.

"You must bring the rifle back," Giravi whispered.

"I will." he assented.

Giravi held his arm a moment longer before looking at the scuffed composite floor and letting go.

"Please don't let them take my son - use him." He spoke in a soft voice gilded distantly with fatalistic resolve. "I owe him a life. More. I will pay it."

Shepard sensed that the marine had demons of his own. He reached out and clasped Giravi's shoulder. The quarian looked up at him, the wretched, empty stare making him flinch mentally. What had this man done in his past to drain him so completely? He had to force himself not to look away.

"Your boy needs you. Whatever happened in the past...pay him back by being there to support him."

It seemed trite. What else could he say? But the distant spark seemed to warm Giravi's chill gaze, if only again for a moment. "The gun kicks like a varren. Be ready." He nodded, then lay back down and turned to the wall. Tali was at his shoulder.

"That was very kind, Shepard."

She gazed at him warmly, but her concern about the possibilities threatened by the mission was clear to see as she shifted her posture nervously. He smiled grimly. It was a day of difficult questions which had their answers ranked in terms of which was the least worst choice. Whether to risk some quarian lives today, or to risk many more if Prazza's Machiavellian ambitions succeeded in lofting him into a position of power. His willingness to toss Tali aside now that her usefulness to him had ended, to use Veetor and the entire mission as pawns...these may only hint at the levels of his ruthlessness in the future. It was a courageous decision to face the challenge now with such long odds for success. But knowing Tali, it was the only decision that she could have made.

"It won't mean much if we don't get a move on. Let's see what Miranda has learned and settle on a plan of action."

He began to head to where Miranda and the guard were seated around the map again without waiting for an answer, securing the rifle behind him. Before he reached the pair, Tali was walking at his side again. Miranda noticed them as they approached and waved them over urgently. The guard at her side seemed distressed. Shepard picked up the pace.

"What is it?" he asked as he ran up to them, looking from Miranda to the guard hooded in pale yellow as Tali appeared behind him.

"They are on the move." Miranda indicated he should sit, and Shepard crouched down to join them next to the pallet. Miranda pointed to a large box on the map situated east of the one marked 'barracks' that they were probably in now. "Radio chatter relayed from our embedded friends indicates they are headed there. It's a warehouse about two klicks east, just on the edge of these residential pods."

"No!" Tali gasped. "That's where I think Veetor is hiding. Keelah..." She sank to the ground as the guard moved around the pallet to offer support. "I don't see how it's possible to avoid a confrontation with them now, unless we abandon this whole idea..."

It was difficult for him to resist taking the initiative and relieving her of the burden, but he felt what she really needed was a kick in the ass. Best not to dwell on that thought too long.

"What do you want to do, Tali? This is your show." Take command. Make the decision and reclaim what Prazza stole from you.

She looked at him with some surprise. But slowly, she returned to her feet and her eyes hardened. There. That's the strength he knew.

"We have to try. Since Veetor has taken control of the mechs, he is probably actually...here." She bent down and tapped the map with her gloved finger at a location adjacent to the warehouse. The guard quickly marked the spot with an 'X'. "There is a comm relay there that he is likely using as a hub for his control network. It's what I would do if I couldn't operate them remotely, and the shielding on these buildings makes that likely the case." She shook her head. "It looks like Prazza is just latching onto the higher energy signature from the mechs that were activated in and around the warehouse facility." Her tone made her opinion of this deduction clear.

"What should we expect them to do?" Shepard asked thoughtfully. He had never faced quarian marines before, and had only Giravi's advice to guide him.

"They will stay in cover, as Giravi said, but will move less carefully if they do not encounter heavy resistance." Tali crossed her arms and began to pace near the pallet, staring at the ground as she thought through their likely tactics. "If they only encounter civilian mechs, even security droids, with their combined firepower they will clear the area rapidly and discover Veetor is not there. They will probably search the nearby buildings and discover him quickly enough."

The scar across Shepard's cheek itched, and he winced at the tenderness as he rubbed at it beneath the visor. It was where Tali had hit him and it was still sore, probably a little purple at this point. "What if they run into something heavier? The Alliance had been working on upgrading the defenses after all."

"In that case...assuming it is inside the facility itself, they will likely make a tactical retreat to entice the threat into an open area. That's if they aren't pinned down. If they are able to draw the threat outside we will probably run into them too. Most of them will be distracted but surely someone on the perimeter will see us and raise the alarm." She made a chopping motion with her arm. "That would be the worst outcome!" she hissed, "There could be serious casualties on both sides if they split their forces to deal with us."

A firefight was definitely to be avoided at all costs. The quarians were highly vulnerable to their envirosuits being damaged, and Shepard's team was in even more dire straits with their lightweight armor and lack of shields. Speed was key. They needed to secure Veetor before the marines realized he wasn't hiding in the warehouse.

"Ok. Here's what I think," he said, earnestly hoping he could convey the impression that he was merely making a suggestion to Tali to the silently watching guard. "What do you say to splitting our team up? We'll proceed together to about here," he indicated a crossroads on the map. "...and split up, quarians to the left, flanking to the comm relay, while we take the direct route and draw any fire if necessary."

Tali and Miranda both looked at the map, Tali unreadable behind the visor, Miranda clearly agitated by the way she glared at the neatly drawn lines and labels. Shepard counted down. 5...4...3...

"Shepard, our mission is to find out what happened to this colony. The quarians could just take Veetor before we have a chance to interrogate him." She tossed her head, her dark brunette locks somehow still perfect despite all that had happened.

Tali jabbed a finger at Miranda. "You don't care about Veetor! His behavior shows that he needs medical attention. He needs to go back to the fleet!"

"Well how about _you_ draw their fire, you're the ones with shields and-"

"Enough." Shepard sighed. Both women turned to glare at him. He removed his helmet, tucking it under one arm, and self-consciously rubbed at the stubble on his head. "Tali's team doesn't need to be shooting at their own people. If we end up facing Prazza's marines, in the confusion they may be able to slip in and grab Veetor while we distract them."

Miranda wasn't convinced. She stood now, hand on her hip while she gestured with the other arm. "And what then? So they have Veetor. The marines will just lay down their arms and everything is fixed?" She sneered. "Not likely. Meanwhile," she said in exasperation, "we have one shotgun, these lousy, surplus reject pistols-"

At this Miranda tossed her weapon onto the table, and the carrier popped off scattering thermal clips onto the floor with a ringing clatter. Shepard knew it would be extremely unwise to laugh at this point - it probably saved him two more years in the tank.

"Bloody hell! And then there's this antique of yours!" She seemed to look down her nose at Giravi's assault rifle. "That is as likely to blow up in your face as it is to hit the backside of a volus at three meters."

"Miranda, it's not that ba-"

"It is!" she interrupted hotly. "And this armor - if you want to call it that. It's unpowered, unshielded," her voice rose until it was almost a shout, "and the radio doesn't even work in my left ear!" She pointed, in case Shepard was too dimwitted to remember which direction was 'left' as well.

"Don't forget outnumbered by a sizable margin."

"Shepard..." Miranda growled.

"Sorry. You do have a point, Miranda." He set the helmet with the cracked visor on the table and began to collect the loose thermal clips. "The problem is, there is no right answer - not that I see. Ideally I wouldn't have fallen on my ass when we found Tali's team, and we could have explained our presence, maybe worked together on this." He shrugged as he began pushing the clips back into the carrier. "It is what it is."

"The commander is right." a voice from behind the group called. They turned to see Jacob leaning in the doorway, a male quarian in black armor with green highlights in front of him seeming a little sullen. Shepard wondered if he was the one who had zapped Jacob with the stunner. Jacob went on, enumerating points on his fingers.

"First, we can't expect Tali's team to defend us with force against the other group of marines. We can't blame them for that, it's their own people. Second, there is no chance of contacting our ship without securing that comm relay. That means no reinforcements, no pickup. Prazza didn't leave the shuttle unguarded according to Feshul here," he inclined his head towards the guard, "so using _their_ transmitter is out. So is retrieving our gear. Four good reasons to go ahead _now_."

"I still don't see why we have to risk direct confrontation." Miranda huffed as she sat back down. "Veetor can't be the only source of information. If we investigate further, on our own," she gave Tali a pointed look, "we may find the information we need without facing down a squad of better armed, better armored marines that have a penchant for staying concealed. Leave the quarian to the quarians."

"That could be," Shepard agreed, meeting Miranda's frustrated gaze, "But nothing was ever found on the other colonies that were hit. Taking that into consideration, do you really think we have that much better of a chance? Veetor is a much more likely source of information." He pushed the carrier back into the dilapidated pistol and held it out to Miranda. She sighed and took it from him, holstering it at her waist.

"I don't know..."

"We do have one major advantage." He grinned widely. "They won't be expecting their prisoners to be at their heels. With this old equipment, there's no energy signature to worry about unless we transmit too carelessly. We have the element of surprise."

"And we don't see them coming, either." Miranda shot back. "All we have is our eyes and ears."

"We'll try to keep you in our sensory umbrella," Tali volunteered, "it won't be possible to be too precise...but we should be able to alert you before you're in visual range."

"They'll detect that."

Tali's eyes glittered as she crossed her arms. "They won't."

More than a small amount of pride in that statement. Having faced down her damping field earlier, Shepard didn't doubt that she could back it up.

"Fine. Unless there are any other suggestions...?"

He waited. Miranda looked unhappy but said nothing. Tali was wringing her hands nervously, but she nodded when their eyes met. Jacob just looked like he was ready to go and shoot something. Not a sentiment he disagreed with, really.

Shepard stood and picked up his helmet from the table, inspecting its worn exterior as he turned it over in his hands. It wouldn't stop a bullet. It wouldn't do much to deflect the concussive blast of a nearby explosion, either. It was designed for civil unrest, not for facing down a squad of marines. It was difficult to put on a brave face. Being unanticipated by the enemy would only go so far against superior firepower and they all knew it. Distract and extract. Their only hope was to avoid a real firefight and sneak Veetor out from under them. What to do after that was a really good question. He felt the weight of his unlikely team's gaze upon him.

The teary, bloodshot eyes of a young lieutenant looked hopelessly up at him in a sweat soaked garrison uniform, overpowered as the confusion of voices on the comms painted a horrible tableau. The fear, the implicit passing of command settling like an overloaded ruck on his shoulders. Responsibility for the dwindling numbers of young men and women shifting to a raw signals tech with a high ranking mother.

It was his to bear, the price of leadership - lives in his hands. He looked at Tali, the young woman experiencing it fully for perhaps the first time. But inside the immaculate suit she was not rejecting the burden. She didn't wilt, this quarian flower of steel.

Hell, he had been in worse situations before. He placed the helmet back on his head like it was the source of his resolve. His team seemed to straighten as one as he faced them.

"It's difficult to understate the odds for success, and I think you are all aware of the risks involved. We'll have to rely on the element of surprise, hopefully get lucky with Veetor's mechs keeping the other squad busy while we extract him." He paused. He couldn't think of a particularly heroic thing to say. He smiled as he looked at the attentive quarian guards, Jacob and Miranda, Tali.

"Get it done. Move out."


	5. Chapter 5

The dull illumination that made it through the low clouds somehow made Freedom's Progress even more unsettling than it had been the previous night. Darkened windows on the residential pods gazed vacantly at the team's progress as they moved, the frigid wind cutting through their clothing and agitating their unease with icy fingers. It was as quiet as when they had landed, but the accumulated frozen precipitation that had recently stopped falling was being blown about, hissing and rattling on the steel and concrete like a warning. There was no other sound save for the labored breathing and ice scrunching footsteps of the three that comprised Shepard's team as they moved quickly towards the warehouse over a kilometer distant.

They had made quick passes through some of the unlocked habitats and found cold meals laid out, terminals in the middle of entering new messages, and one pod that had flooded due to an overflowing sink. Any vids that had been left on were displaying test patterns indicating total loss of comms, but no sign of a struggle or any evidence of the damage and looting raiders or slavers left behind was there to be found. It was as if everybody in the colony had dropped what they were doing and simply vanished.

As they made their way through the streets they preferred speed to staying in cover. Occasionally Shepard would hold the team up besides one of the gaping chasms that provided ventilation to the colony's infrastructure below ground for Jacob to drop a flare down. The architects of the colony had elected to put most of the technical plant beneath the surface to protect it from the variability and accompanying solar disturbances of its parent star. The red light of the flares revealed only idled equipment and more crates. There had been one with a worker's protective helmet lying on the ground, undamaged, its owner missing. The strap wasn't even broken. It had taken him a few seconds to tear his eyes from it and signal his team to move on.

An uneasy feeling like realizing an enemy squad was falling back too quickly, or when a commanding officer agreed too readily with a suggestion, followed him between the abandoned buildings. He gripped Giravi's rifle, swept from side to side as they walked quick-step to the east, but found nothing to challenge him. Only empty pods, shuttles stopped in the middle of the street, steam rising from the ventilation shafts. They maintained strict radio silence and listened only for alerts from Tali's team who were somewhere north of them by now. They had not been separated long but he could tell from the clipped comments and observations that they exchanged in the unnatural silence that it was getting to the others. Even Miranda seemed to miss the quarians' company.

Shepard stifled a yawn as they paused by another chasm. They had been on the surface for about sixteen hours. He had not been well rested when they arrived, and circumstances since then had kept him more or less on edge the entire time. Tali's mission, however, had landed two days prior. She had explained some of what they had encountered to him before they split up and went on their separate ways to the objective.

* * *

"Initially we focused our search nearer the spaceport on the other side of the colony," she said as they walked side by side, "We expected him to be working more with the control systems there, he was always fascinated by the physics of atmospheric flight and reentry. They had put him to work improving the ILS for the main cargo transfer hub."

There was laughter behind them. Shepard turned, and saw Jacob clapping Feshul on the shoulder as his former guard gestured animatedly in the telling of some story. Judging by the nature of his movements, it wasn't a tale to be repeated in polite company. Marines would be marines. He turned back to Tali, shaking his head and grinning ruefully.

"I'm sorry. Good to see they are getting along though. How did Veetor come to be clear over on this side of the place?"

Tali rolled her shoulders, giving him a look implying that being friendly with Cerberus was not necessarily a good thing for Feshul's career. "We can only hypothesize. My guess is he tried to find any survivors after...whatever happened here, before becoming frightened enough to hide and set out all the mechs."

"You've mentioned the mechs a couple of times, but we haven't encountered any. What can you tell me about that?"

"Well, actually it's the strangest thing." She inclined her head, looking aside at him. "They weren't really set up in a defensive mode initially. I mean to say, not so that they would be useful against us."

He gave her a doubtful glance. "What do you mean?"

"All of their sensory apparatus, their optics and EM receptors - everything was directed up there." She pointed straight up. "We were able to get extremely close and disabled many of them before he started changing their programming."

Shepard felt a chill that wasn't due entirely to the weather. "He had a bunch of mechs staring up at the sky? For what?"

"I don't know," she said, reaching behind her back to withdraw her shotgun, inspecting it as they walked. "Hopefully we can find out."

* * *

"Commander!"

Jacob's voice brought him back to the present. "What is it? Something down there?"

"Yes, sir. You might want to see this."

Shepard peered over the railing. Illuminated in the flickering red light several meters below lay a mangled android with most of its torso missing below the upper chest. Scorch marks and melted wiring indicated it hadn't been the fall that had done the mech in.

"Are you kidding me? They have heavy weapons?"

"Looks that way. Damage is consistent with use of a rocket launcher."

He sighed. "Great. I should have asked Tali about that."

"Funny she didn't mention it." Miranda had joined them at the railing. "I knew we couldn't trust her. All she sees when she looks at us is Cerberus." She quirked an eyebrow. "I guess we're disposable to her."

"You probably want to stop talking now," Shepard said a little too casually. Miranda didn't pick up on the warning - or more likely ignored it.

"You're far too trusting, Shepard. She has you doing the dirty work while she takes the prize. Wouldn't it look _terrible_ on her report if a Cerberus team were to be wiped out in the process?" She laughed. "This is unbelievable."

He took a few moments to calm down, reminding himself that Cerberus and the quarian fleet had experienced recent friction before answering her evenly. "You don't know Tali. We are all under a lot of pressure-"

"And you do?" Miranda interrupted, stepping towards him, "It's been two years, Shepard! People change! She could have her eye on a captain's chair just like this Prazza."

For an instant, doubt poisoned his thoughts. Tali was directing them like puppets in some grand theater, lying to them, removing her rival, Prazza, and grinding Cerberus out beneath her heel. Then she was laughing maniacally.

Talk about unbelievable.

"You're wrong." he said simply. She opened her mouth to begin anew, but he raised his hand. "Stow it. You do _not_ want to say another word."

Miranda's jaw clamped shut and she glared at him. "The Illusive Man will be told about this - assuming we survive."

"Fine," he breathed in exasperation, "After the mission, you do what you have to do. Until then, let's get on with it and you let _me_ worry about Tali."

"You two have a history, I'm not blind," she said in a low voice, "I saw how she reacted when she first recognized you and I certainly see it now. I'm not sure I can trust your judgment." She stood with her arms crossed, unmoving. Jacob was maintaining a carefully neutral posture. This was the time she was going to pick to question his command?

"Look it's because we _have_ his-" he stopped, rattled by an odd feeling that he had just missed something.

"Did you hear that?" Jacob asked quietly, lifting his helmet over his ears.

Not his imagination then. "Quiet a minute." He listened intently. The sound of ice crystals sliding across the ground was all he could hear. He was about to discount it as nothing when the wind carried it to his ears again: the distant staccato 'pop-pop-pop' of automatic weapons.

"Gunfire," Miranda said in a hushed voice. "Dead ahead."

Shepard nodded, almost relieved to hear it. "We've wasted too much time, this argument will have to wait." He would have to risk raising Tali on comm and determine if there were any marines in his path. As he raised his hand to enable the transmitter, the ground trembled lightly. An instant later the deep bass 'krr-UMP' of an explosion was unmistakable from the east.

"A hand-carried launcher wouldn't do that!" Jacob exclaimed. "If there's something bigger down there, those marines may be in big trouble."

Tali's team could be in danger also. They were closer, scouting the surrounding area before Shepard's team arrived. Still...

"We were after a distraction, looks like our wish was granted." He toggled the transmitter in the helmet to active mode, but Tali's voice came in a burst of static before he could call her on his own.

"-pard, over. Tali'Zorah to Shep...spond." The words were difficult to make out. Without access to anything but the helmet radio he suspected more jamming.

"Copy Tali, your signal is breaking up; can you compensate?"

There were a few moments of relative silence as sporadic gunfire continued from the direction of the warehouse. Shepard signaled to Miranda and Jacob: proceed, alternating cover, quickly! Miranda nodded, advancing and taking cover behind one of the pods. She sighted down her pistol around the corner of the structure, and without looking back motioned for Jacob to advance. He moved quickly but carefully up the street to the next pod, sweeping the area with his eyes. Shepard followed.

"Commander Shepard, am I readable?" Tali's voice was much clearer now.

"Copy, we read you. We are proceeding towards the objective, what is your status?" He ducked behind a ground transport that had run up against a pile of fertilizer barrels, leaving little yellow pellets scattered all over the area. He noticed a faint smell like sulfur as he crouched down. The transport was unoccupied. He sent Miranda forward with a gesture.

"We are good, secure in cover overlooking the objective. Part of the roof of the warehouse has been blown off, we're not sure what caused the explosion but there was a lot of shooting immediately prior. We have not heard from our people embedded in Prazza's team..." Her voice trailed off. He knew that there was only so much that she could do to prepare herself for losses among her own. She would probably become angry with herself if she was to dwell on it for too long - it was better to redirect that energy.

"Understood. Prazza put them into that position. Prazza." He paused, taking a breath of the frigid atmosphere as he stood and moved to the east. "We have no information on the location of the marines, we're moving slowly. Do you know their positions?"

A brief pause. "...yes. Yes!" Her voice was stronger. Shepard smiled slightly to himself. "They are trapped in the warehouse, Veetor secured the doors behind them. Come quickly, please!"

Relatively assured of safety, he broke into a jog, waving his arm forward for Miranda and Jacob to follow. He heard their footsteps behind him. The armor was lighter than his usual gear but without the power assist, so he kept his pace measured. They had a bit less than a kilometer to cover.

"Tali, are you able to take the objective?" Veetor. They needed to take every advantage provided by the distraction.

"...negative. It is covered by at least two security mechs...there is a large open area between us, and if we circle around we may be spotted. I want to avoid alarming Veetor further until you can provide support."

No good, too much risk to Tali's team. They needed a plan, but he had to have more information first.

"What can you give me about the setup?"

"Not a lot to tell, but hold on."

Presently the top of the warehouse came into view. Thick smoke poured out from behind roof panels bent jaggedly upward, rising until it was indistinguishable from the leaden clouds above. The air inside was probably not breathable, small blessing that it wouldn't be a problem for the suited quarians - assuming any were still alive. As they came over the next rise he was able to get a better view of the facility. It was a squat cermacrete structure, still about a floor taller than the surrounding buildings. Two heavy sliding doors fronted it and he could just make out the glaring red security field indicating lock-down. The area was open with little cover aside from scattered cargo containers, particularly the approach from the north where Tali's team had set up. There was a low-slung building there at the edge of a chasm that was bridged by a totally exposed narrow walkway. He didn't see anyone, but suspected that at least one of them was concealed on the roof of the building to observe the site.

"We see you now," Tali's voice crackled in his ear, "The comm relay has been barricaded but the mechs are out front. Do you have them?"

Out of breath with lungs burning from the dry air, Shepard sent his team to either side as they came to the first containers, sending Jacob to circle north while he stayed with the more lightly armed Miranda. Stopping at the corner, he looked back down the ten meter length of the box at Jacob, who grinned, gave a thumbs up, and proceeded around out of sight towards the warehouse. He turned and peered around the container, spotting the hastily barricaded comm relay blocked by a random assortment of barrels, crates, and equipment. He squinted, trying to ignore the stinging cold biting at his nose and ears as the wind hit him full on in the face.

"I'm not seeing..."

"Commander, there. Next to the blue drum." Miranda grasped his shoulder and directed his gaze with her other arm. Next to a dark blue drum that was tipped on its side, crouched low and camouflaged by debris, was one of the angular white security droids. Tali had done well to see it at that distance.

"Got it. That one isn't staring into space, either." He craned his neck, holding the rifle to his chest, seeking the other one. Unable to spot it, he glanced at Miranda. She leaned out past him to look, then shook her head. Grimacing, he signaled Tali again as he ducked behind the windbreak. "We don't see the second."

"It may be just outside of your field of vision. It's on the opposite side of that...the pile of girder looking things?"

He looked again, to be rewarded with another blast of freezing air. There was a stack of steel beams a few meters from the first mech.

"Ok. Jacob, can you get to it from your position?"

"Yes, I see it. I'll need to get closer for an effective shot but I'll be spotted."

Shepard checked the safety on Giravi's rifle, only to discover that it didn't have one. His heart was racing. There wasn't much to work with. His left hand twitched as he wished for the missing omni-tool which would have made short work of the mechs.

"Don't worry, in a minute you'll be the last thing on its little electronic mind. I'm going to open up on the first mech. If the other one moves to respond, and I think it will, Jacob, you move in and take it out."

"Copy," Jacob replied. He didn't sound nervous at all. He turned to Miranda.

"I want you to move up and circle behind those barricades," he said in a low voice, pointing around their southern edge, "even if I can't take that mech down immediately I will keep its attention. Stay in radio contact - if you find more, don't engage if you can avoid it, just find cover and report position. Clear?"

She nodded as she made a quick check of her pistol. "Clear. Good luck, Shepard." The corner of her mouth turned up in a wry smile. "I'm with you on that much."

He grinned with a confidence he didn't feel. "Tali, shields?"

"None on these. They are only lightly armored."

Lucky, but he wagered that they weren't as lightly armored as his team. "Good. If it looks like Jacob needs a distraction, try to provide some covering fire..."

The ground shook, and there was another loud explosion as a fireball tore away another section of the warehouse roof, sending thick smoke roiling upwards behind it. Chunks of heavy shielding from the roof smashed noisily to the ground around the building.

"Maybe you should see what is going on in there, actually, since we are probably going to wind up dealing with it eventually. Just...can you leave someone as a spotter for us?"

"I'll stay," said a male voice colored with a hint of a smile, "if anybody is killing that Cerberus bastard Jacob, it's going to be me, not some third-rate mech!"

Jacob's laughter cut in over the radio. "In your dreams, Feshul! The only way you can take me out is if you drink me under the table after this is over!"

"That's enough," Tali sighed - Shepard thought he heard an amused note to her voice. "Feshul will cover your team, Shepard. I'll go and investigate the situation at the warehouse."

"Understood. Be careful, Tali."

"You too Shepard. It would be a shame to waste all that work Cerberus did to bring you back."

He didn't turn to look, but he knew that Miranda would be leering at him for that remark.

"Yeah."

He checked the weapon one last time, withdrawing the carrier and checking the clip ejection mechanism. The slide clacked back and forth smoothly. Nodding to himself, he chucked the carrier back into the weapon and chambered a clip. A green LED blinked twice on the side of the gun. The rifle, at least, was ready. His hands trembled slightly, from the cold and from nerves, anticipation.

"Here we go. Wait for my signal - that would be when I fire - then both of you move as we discussed: Jacob, second mech; Miranda, circle south towards the relay. Copy?"

"Copy," they both said in chorus.

He crouched down, brought up the rifle and sighted down its length, resting the butt against his shoulder. Iron-sights only, no scope...it seemed a strange omission. Perhaps there was some augmentation provided by Giravi's helmet - he would have to ask Tali about that later. _Kicks like a Varren._ How bad could it be? He increased the pressure on the oversize trigger smoothly.

A deafening report from the rifle shattered the calm as it sent its three shot burst tearing towards the mech. The barrel of the weapon shot upward out of his left hand, and he stumbled backwards a step as his shoulder throbbed achingly from the recoil. Damn! The third round went high, but the other two found their target. They literally picked the mech up off the ground and spun it bodily into the stack of beams, which fell over noisily. The mech's optics went dark as a shower of sparks erupted from joints in its neck and arms. As Shepard struggled to regain his composure and control, he heard two quick blasts from Jacob's commandeered shotgun. As the echoes faded, a shocked silence returned. He looked down at the rifle...any unprotected organic hit by _that_ would become a fine pink mist.

"Ah...any more? Jacob, did you take the second one out?"

"Affirmative, commander. Nice work pinning it with those beams."

"Um. Yes, all according to plan. What's the situation there now?"

"Door is locked," Miranda reported, "we won't get in without an omni-tool. There were no other mechs on the south side, though."

Great. "Well, grab the weapons those mechs had...got to be better than that pistol."

"The beams destroyed the second one's rifle...Miranda has the first."

As Jacob finished his transmission, he saw Miranda holster her pistol and raise the assault rifle, waving. Things were looking up.

"Shepard! The warehouse doors are opening!" Tali broke in with a panicked voice. Not good.

"Tell Prazza that we will open fi-"

"It's not the marines! Veetor disabled the security field when those two mechs were dest- oh, Keelah!"

Lurching out of the smoke of the warehouse fire came an enormous cargo-handling mech, its white finish tarnished with soot interrupted by gleaming, freshly gouged metal. The cockpit was devoid of a human pilot, filled instead with electronics to automate it. A rocket pod rested atop its shoulder, two of the ports empty but there was still one missile left. The broad arms, normally fitted with fork-like appendages for moving containers, ended in what appeared to be a pair of heavy cannons. It took a few thudding paces out from the warehouse and paused, scanning the scene. No marines emerged from behind it.

Tali was probably right next to the damn thing.

"Tali, don't move. Don't respond. Radio silence."

Probably an unnecessary warning, but if she felt insulted he would just have to deal with it later. The problem was...what to do now? He leaned around the container. The mech took a staggering step as it turned to the north - had it detected Tali's team? A brief, terrible image of what it could do to her flashed in his mind. He found himself bracing to fire the weapon towards the mech, squeezing the trigger at the same time he realized what an insanely stupid thing he was doing.

The gun fired. And again. He felt as if his teeth would rattle out of his skull, like his right shoulder would never work properly again, but he kept firing, fully committed, managing to keep the barrel down. Most of the shots found the mech, enormous as it was - causing splashes of blue luminance. Of course - shields! He cursed at himself as he ratcheted the eject mechanism. The spent thermal clip flew out of the weapon, he felt the intense heat radiating from it as it passed within centimeters of bare skin left exposed by the helmet. It spun as it landed on the ground, hissing, vaporizing the ice. The mech turned ponderously in his direction, leveling the gaping maws of its cannons at the container.

He ran.

Shepard didn't see the mech fire. There was a surreal moment of silence as his feet were swept out from under him as if by magic, and the ground seemed to ripple before the horizon upended itself. The compression wave from the explosion that followed threw him violently to the ground, knocking the breath out of him. There was a painful popping sensation in his chest as he tumbled to rest some twenty meters from the container whose twisted remnants suddenly gyrated past overhead. After what seemed like minutes, probably mere moments, he groaned and struggled to his feet, limping towards another container nearby. Somehow he had managed to keep hold of the rifle. His ears were ringing loudly. He tried speaking to himself out loud, heard nothing. For the time being, anyway, he was deafened. He triggered the transmitter.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I can't hear you..."

He sniffed, feeling something wet on his lip. He wasn't surprised to see blood when he wiped his hand across it. Despite the hearing loss and the superficial injuries, however, he felt that everything was more or less in working order, although he felt a twinging pain when he took a breath...probably cracked a rib.

He looked around the edge of the container. The mech stood where it had been, although all the ice had been cleared in front of it from its shot. It did not advance, but it was obviously scanning the area. The cannons wouldn't be ready to fire again for a brief period of time as they cooled down. He had to act quickly. The clearing offered no new ideas, just more containers which had already proved their lack of effectiveness as cover, and a collection of ground vehicles to one side...

Wait. Could that possibly be...

Shepard squinted as he examined the cluster of vehicles more closely. It was some kind of maintenance facility, and there were some large tanks nearby. He couldn't be that lucky. But then his eyes caught the symbol emblazoned on the side of one of the tanks. He fought the memories down as his vision shimmered, but he was grinning like a fool. He could use this. But the remaining rocket still posed a problem.

"Jacob, Miranda. There isn't much time. I don't care how you do it - but you need to get the mech to fire that rocket." He paused. "Use your discretion. But if this doesn't work, we could all be dead. You have one minute only, or the cannon could come back online before I am ready. Go!"

There was some kind of response, he could feel a faint buzzing in his ears, but nothing he could understand. He had to assume they would act. Shepard began to scrabble across the ice towards the maintenance facility, keeping low and hoping his non-existent EM signature would avoid drawing attention from the mech. As he approached the first vehicles, he saw motion out of the corner of his eye. His heart leaped into his throat as he saw Jacob running flat out towards the warehouse, firing over his shoulder at the mech, the shots splashing weakly against the shields. The mech's head swiveled, and the rocket launched from the pod in a gout of flame.

"Oh, please..." he muttered to himself as the missile closed the gap impossibly fast, Jacob seeming to move in stop-motion. He wasn't going to make it. At the last second, Jacob flung himself into the air as he dove behind the wall. Shepard saw a faint, deep blue aura emerge from his hands - biotic energy, an impressive feat without an amp. The missile struck the field as Jacob continued to fall towards cover, seeming impossibly to pause in its flight for an instant...and exploded in a brilliant fireball. Whatever had happened to Jacob, it had happened by the slimmest of margins. In the Alliance the man would have earned a medal. He had no idea if Cerberus had anything similar...maybe a bonus?

"Jacob, if you're still able to hear this," he said in an amazed voice, "great work. The rest is mine. Miranda, once that beast is on me again go check on him."

Shepard got to his feet, forcing himself to ignore the area where Jacob may or may not lay dead or injured. He climbed into the nearest vehicle and flopped onto the hard foam cushion. The panel was a little unfamiliar...but eventually he found what he was looking for and toggled a switch on the dash, causing the displays to flicker on. More examination revealed a white button labeled "ENGINE START." He held it down, and the engine burbled and rumbled noisily to life. He looked out the ice covered windshield from the humming cabin, but the mech had noticed nothing, still facing towards Jacob's location. Chewing his lip, Shepard wondered if the plan would work. No choice now really. The controls were thankfully less primitive than he expected - he put the vehicle into forward drive, and centered its steering onto the mech as it lunged gracelessly into motion, cold gearboxes howling in complaint. Once sure of its path he leaped from the cab, and ran back to start more of the vehicles, grasping at the pain in his side.

The truck rolled inexorably towards the repurposed cargo mech, tires bouncing on pieces of debris. The mech finally took notice when the vehicle clipped the side of a cargo container with a bang and shattering glass from the windshield some thirty meters out, and turned to face it. Shepard held his breath. It seemed to examine the truck dumbly for a moment, and then the cannons fired. From a distance it was quite impressive. A bright blue flash, a sphere of expanding water vapor, a terrific boom and bone-jarring blast...and there was no more truck, just a greasy black spot on the pavement and a single flaming tire bouncing towards the warehouse. But now the threat-assessment software kicked in, and it noticed the array of rumbling trucks around the maintenance facility. After another pause that made Shepard wonder about who had programmed the mech in the first place, it began to lumber towards them.

From his new vantage point well away from the depot, Shepard grinned.

"There are about to be some fireworks. When you see things go to hell over there, open up on that thing with whatever you've got."

"But what...?" he heard faintly in his headset.

"Great, I can hear you guys again. You'll need to speak up. Just watch."

Finally arriving at the depot, the mech peered down at one of the idling trucks that seemed like toys at its feet. After several pensive moments, it lifted its foot and unceremoniously crushed the vehicle beneath it.

"Here we go..."

Shepard stood and aimed at the large tank adjacent to the mech. With six bursts he peppered the side of the tank with holes, causing translucent fluid to spray out all over and around the mech which now turned to face him. Precious seconds passed as it leveled its cannons in his direction.

"That's right, you stupid piece of junk. Do it."

An instant before the mech fired, Shepard dropped over the side of the chasm. The mech fired. The shots passed harmlessly over the chasm as Shepard fell towards some strategically positioned crates. He landed hard, and his head bounced off a crate, but nothing new seemed broken. He gasped at the pain in his side as he came unsteadily to his feet again, and climbed the adjacent ladder back to the surface.

The mech hadn't been so lucky.

As it came back into view, he saw it was enveloped in flames along with the remnants of the tanks and vehicles. It stumbled around, besieged with weapons fire from Jacob, who was still alive, Miranda, and Feshul. Its programming had not prepared it for this. He heard its metal skin pop and creak as the oily flames lapped hungrily at it, whining servos approaching their breaking point as bearings seized and joints began to bind. What the warehouse fire had started, Shepard's attack would finish. He raised Giravi's rifle as the mech turned haltingly in his direction, and fired six full bursts into the cockpit and its hardened electronics. The mech finally seemed to scream as its gears ground together and its turbines screeched to a halt. The torso canted forward, and the mech finally stopped, the only sound now the crackling flames and small secondary explosions from the depot. And the triumphant shouting in his ears as he slumped to the ground holding his side, a weary smile on his frostbitten face.

* * *

A few minutes after the destruction of the mech, Shepard approached the warehouse where his team had gathered. Three quarians out of a squad of ten had survived the encounter within the building. They had quickly agreed to lay down their arms when Tali had offered assistance, although they had seemed confused. She was observing Feshul patch up one of the marines sitting on the ground that seemed to be in the worst shape. All of them had new bright blue splotches on their suits from self-repair, but this one had a bright green patch on his shoulder and some kind of white paste down what appeared to be a crack in his visor. Feshul was checking some readouts on an omni-tool that he hovered over an injured arm as the marine coughed weakly.

The nameless female guard nudged Tali as he approached, and her head whipped up to look at him. She had drawn her decorative cowl back, revealing the bewildering array of cables and tubes leading into the back of the helmet, part of the suit's life support system. She walked briskly towards him, urgency in her stride. At first he thought she was worried, and offered a small reassuring smile...but then he noticed the way she held her fists at her side.

"I, uh..." What?

She stopped a measured pace in front of him. Fuming, apparently.

"You..."

"Me?"

Her eyes flashed, and she stepped close to him, her visor a hair's width from his nose. His heart pounded as he stared into her eyes. She was really upset with him.

"You _idiot!_" she snapped, suddenly punching him in the shoulder. "What were you _thinking?_"

He held his arms up, surrendering to her anger although he didn't understand it.

"What did I-"

"_Bosh'tet_," her voice quavered, "I can take care of myself."

Oh.

"I'm sorry. Listen, I just-"

"Later. We have more important things to worry about now. Follow me."

With that, she spun around and walked stiffly back to the group. He followed, sulking. Jacob was keeping his eyes averted, and Miranda pretended to be intensely interested in what Feshul was doing. When they reached the group, Tali turned again to face him and addressed him as if nothing had happened.

"Commander."

Ouch. No more Shepard?

"We have two problems. First...Veetor is still locked up in the comm relay." She jerked her head towards the building. "Second, these marines had an interesting interpretation of why we are here." She glared down at the one in smudged urban camo, who flinched.

"Ah...didn't Prazza send you? Reinforcements?"

Shepard raised his eyebrows. "Really? He took us prisoner, remember?" He winced at the sudden pain in his side. He dared not complain about it.

"But he told us..." his voice trailed off, and he looked at Tali. "He, uh...I think he lied to us, ma'am."

"No kidding. The coward fled and left you to rot."

It didn't make sense to him. "Where would he go? It's not like he could-"

"Keelah." Tali's eyes were wide. "The shuttle."

Miranda spoke up, leaning against the wall. "But he couldn't take the shuttle, could he?"

"Normally, no," Tali agreed, "but he assumed command. He would have received the command codes. He can't leave the system, but the shuttle is armed like most of our ships."

"You're saying," Shepard said slowly, "that he could be in orbit right now, about to blow us to kingdom come."

"That is what I am saying."

There was a lengthy silence.

"Wait a minute. The shuttle was guarded." Jacob stepped forward, arms crossed. "What happened to them?"

Feshul stood, shaking his head and putting the omni-tool away. "I know those men. They wouldn't allow him to leave without us. They wouldn't."

"That means..." Tali tapped a sequence into her omni-tool. "Tali'Zorah to shuttle detail, come in."

Almost immediately a relieved voice came through the tool. "Tali'Zorah! We weren't sure how to reach you - Prazza tricked us, took the ship!"

"What?"

"He told us that Veetor had been captured, and that we were to begin packing up the base camp...a few minutes after we left the ship, it took off without us. What is going on?"

"I don't know, but I have an idea. Don't transmit any more until I contact you again, he could use it to get your location. Move away from there now."

There was a pause. "R...right. Shuttle detail, out."

She turned to face them. "He knows where we are already, probably has us zeroed. I am going to see if I can convince him to stand down."

Shepard risked speaking up. "You know that he won't. He could be too far out to reach anyway."

"I have to try," she snapped, "what else can I do?"

"Tali'Zorah..." the female guard began.

"I know. I know," she sighed. She entered another sequence into the omni-tool. "Prazza. This is Tali'Zorah. There are three left from your squad, you _bosh'tet_. Stand down and return the shuttle immediately and maybe the Fleet will have mercy." She cut the transmission. "Not that you deserve it," she breathed.

"Tali, Tali..." Prazza's voice came, loud and clear. He had to be directly overhead somewhere, likely targeting them. "If only you and I could have worked something out. I was right for you, you know. Imagine what we could have accomplished."

Tali's hands were clenched into tight fists, and she shook visibly with rage. Her voice was acid. "You...bastard. We are nothing alike. I am giving you one more chance to do the 'honorable' thing," she spat the word, "or I will resolve this permanently."

Prazza's coughing laugh taunted her back. "There is nothing you can do. I'll destroy all the evidence - all - and the Cerberus ship. Such a tragedy, but what can you do, eh?" Shepard could hear the sneer in Prazza's voice. "A shame there were no other survivors, but such a result - Cerberus' top agents, the traitor Shepard, and a mere fifteen or so quarians had to pay with their lives. _You_ could have stopped all this. Y-"

Tali cut him off, her eyes cold, emotionless, as she punched in a new sequence. She spoke in a monotone.

"This is Tali'Zorah vas Neema. Command override, charlie, echo, one, niner, zulu, alpha, alpha, priority zero. Passphrase, 'prime seven indigo.'" The response was instantaneous, a flat genderless voice.

"Access denied. Override disabled, authority Prazza alpha-"

She cut the transmission again, and looked to the quarians assembled in front of her. Shepard sensed great trepidation and dread behind her guarded gaze. When she spoke, it was curiously formal and only to the quarians.

"Prazza has willfully and egregiously taken control of Fleet resources for his own personal gain. He has threatened, with all of you as witnesses, to use these resources against his own people. He has mutinied, taken command improperly, caused the deaths of seven brave marines through negligence, deception, and cowardice. He has no regard for those who sent us on this mission, and has deserted the Fleet." She looked individually at all of them. There was the slightest hitch in her voice as she continued. "Do any of you dispute these allegations? Speak now."

One by one, they answered solemnly. "No, Tali'Zorah."

When they had all answered, Tali looked at the ground with a shuddering sigh. When she looked up, the pain in her gaze was so stark and vivid that he barely stopped himself from reaching out to her. He knew it would be a mistake. But it was difficult. Extremely difficult.

"Very well." She stiffly punched in another sequence, much longer. And waited. The omni-tool beeped twice. Tali turned away from them, so nobody could see, and entered another sequence before turning back.

"This is Tali'Zorah vas Neema. Initiate sequence, delta, delta, one. Priority zero. Passphrase, 'eezo six...Virmire.'" The last word was a whisper.

"Access initialized. Please provide secondary authorization for sequence, delta, delta, one."

Wordlessly, Tali approached Feshul and held out the tool. He stepped forward haltingly, and spoke quietly.

"This is Feshul'Iori vas Ren. Confirm sequence, delta, delta, one. Passphrase, 'beta niner hydri.'"

"Secondary authorization confirmed. Standing by for sequence delta, delta, one execution."

Shepard's mouth twitched, and he opened and closed his fists. He was pretty sure he knew what was about to happen.

Tali stared at the omni-tool as if it were the whole world. Seconds passed with the wind lashing at them, as if daring her to delay further. As Shepard watched, instead it was as if the frigid air only solidified her resolve. Gradually, she seemed to accept her task. And finally she submitted to the requirements of command.

"This is Tali'Zorah vas Neema. Execute sequence delta, delta, one."

"Affirmative. Executing sequence delta, delta, one. Execution can be canceled for ten seconds. Mark."

She lowered the tool and stepped back, almost collapsing as she leaned against the wall of the still smoldering warehouse. The seconds ticked past. Shepard looked up. Sometime during the battle, the sky had cleared. It was dusk and the first stars had begun to appear in the violet-hued sky. He heard Miranda gasp, looked at her, then followed her gaze closer to the horizon.

A quickly expanding explosion was evident there, already fading at the edges. It seemed to branch out like a living thing, and nobody spoke as its tendrils reached towards the ground. It was almost...almost like...

"A flower in the sky," said a quiet voice behind them.

As one, they turned and saw Veetor, wringing his hands on the steps of the comm relay with its door now open, staring up at the sky.

"They will come for me. But you are not them."


	6. Chapter 6

Shepard drummed his fingers on the steel table's surface, watching as they rippled against the worn finish, a uniform government beige that had now faded nearly to white around the edges. The metal was thin, and he tried to let the hollow tapping sound settle his mind. Miranda stood behind him, arms crossed, stone-faced and scowling across the table, eyes carefully looking at nothing in particular. He didn't understand what she was upset with him for - the current situation with the quarians was largely her own fault. Abruptly, he stilled his fingers. It wasn't working. Closing his eyes for a moment, he struggled to contain his conflicting emotions. He had a job to do. To paraphrase something Miranda had said to him, exasperated by his probing questions on the station, he could waste more time thinking about just how much pride he could eat in one day - or he could do it. He felt his lips involuntarily pull tight against his teeth as he looked up across the table.

Sitting across the meter of painted steel that separated them, fidgeting nervously in a chair, was Veetor. From the time he had spent with him already, Shepard knew his behavior alternated between barely coherent babbling about "them," to suddenly becoming terrified of everyone and everything in the room, to performing seemingly random tasks and technical queries with his omni-tool. It was clear that he and his erstwhile father had...issues, exactly as Tali had said before. But while Giravi was a carefully deliberate, emotionless, cold-blooded killer who cared only for his son, Veetor was a high-strung bundle of energy that couldn't sit still for ten seconds and seemed to utter every thought that entered his brain - immediately, and in no particular order. And Shepard didn't begrudge him any of it. From what he knew of his past and from the bizarre picture that was beginning to emerge of what had happened on Freedom's Progress from some initial mining of the fragmented databanks in the comm relay, he certainly could be forgiven for becoming slightly unhinged.

No, what really irritated him was what else was across the table. And what, or more properly who, wasn't.

There were some displays, with a screensaver - did holographic displays need screensavers? - glowing amber and showing the rotating logo of the company that had been the primary funding source for the doomed colony, FrontAgra.

Displays were fine. Screensavers, even if somewhat dubious, were fine. FrontAgra sold the highest quality corn products in the galaxy, made using only free, non-indentured labor - also fine.

But standing by the door was a quarian in a casually alert stance, observing everything. An armed quarian. Shepard forced himself to smile at him. Feshul nodded - he liked Feshul well enough - and said: "Commander...you only have ten minutes. Those are my orders." He shrugged apologetically.

An armed quarian with a damned watch. Why did he feel like he was the one being interrogated? All that was missing was a spotlight in his face, a good cop and a bad cop. He chuckled to himself, earning a sharp look from Miranda that he didn't see. Maybe Shepard was the good cop, and Miranda...had really screwed things up. He shook his head. Tali had already been on a razor's edge after being forced to destroy the shuttle, killing Prazza before he could strike at them. Before Shepard could stop her, Miranda had insisted - demanded, really - that they be allowed to take Veetor and interrogate him aboard _Typhon's Pride_, going so far as to lay hands on the terrified quarian. Who then launched into a stuttering tirade about something that would be coming back to get him, wrested himself from her grasp, and locked himself in the comm relay for a full hour before Tali could coax him out again. This had considerably eroded the trust, or at least the tolerance, that had built up between his team and the quarians to the point that relations became very cool.

Miranda had given them good reason to be suspicious, but he resented the implication that an armed guard was necessary. Being in the constant tender care of the quarians was beginning to wear very thin.

And then there was Tali...

Veetor chose that moment to look earnestly into Shepard's eyes. "You know, my father got me this suit. He saved me before."

Shepard smiled back at him. "And it's a fine envirosuit, Veetor. It fits you well. Veetor...we're not here to hurt you, or take you away."

He fidgeted and looked down, smoothing the material across his chest lovingly. The suit was a glossy, deep red color with white highlights, mostly gleamingly new aside from the usual wear points he had seen on the suits of the others - elbows, shins, foot armor. Only Tali's suit had appeared to be in better condition. It was a marked difference from Giravi's battle-scarred armor.

"He saved me before. He won't let them take me. Or...her." He peered up at Miranda, barely raising his head enough to see her at the periphery of his vision from beneath the helmet.

Shepard's chair creaked as he shifted his weight carefully, favoring his bandaged side, to turn and smile meaningfully up at Miranda. The corner of her mouth turned down, and she had the grace to look guiltily at the floor for a moment. He felt some of his frustration with her lift - some. She looked up at Veetor and stepped smartly forward, clasping her hands behind her back. Veetor sat up in the chair rigidly, ramrod-straight, and seemed to try to verify Feshul's presence out of the corner of his eye.

"Veetor, I...apologize," she sighed, "I didn't mean to frighten you, I just-"

Shepard coughed.

"...I'm sorry," she finished lamely, inclining her head in Veetor's direction. Then, very deliberately, she walked around the edges of the room by the wall to the door. Veetor leaned as far as he possibly could away from her without falling out of his chair as she passed near him. Feshul quietly palmed a switch to open the door. She paused long enough in the entry to give him a short nod, which Feshul returned, before stepping out of the room with the door whisking shut behind her. Shepard couldn't tell who seemed more immediately relieved - Feshul or Veetor. After a moment he cleared his throat, and Veetor turned his head away from the door again to face him.

"Veetor, Tali is going to take you from here soon, back to the Flotilla where you'll be safe, and some people can talk with you about what happened." He raised an eyebrow. "Do you remember Tali?"

Veetor nodded briskly. "She's nice."

He smiled ruefully. She could also be really damn hard to read.

"Yeah, she's great."

Feshul shook his head in good humored commiseration as Shepard reached up to rub at the scar along his jaw. The frostbite had made it tender again. He had shed the flimsy riot armor, exchanging the multicolored pieces for faded, quilted green coveralls with the FrontAgra logo on the breast pocket. Not only had the quarians judged it less intimidating for Veetor, it was also much warmer. It was the first time he could recall being comfortable during the entire duration of their stay on the surface. He pursed his lips, leaning forward in the chair - this would be the tricky part.

"Now...this may be a little difficult. But you're safe here too, with us. So try and relax. Ok?"

The quarian nodded again, but his eyes shifted their gaze nervously around the room. Shepard plowed ahead, aware of his diminishing time window.

"The databanks, what's left of them, show that there was a large vessel here before. It's gone," he said quickly, as Veetor's eyes became large as dinner plates, "but do you remember this ship?"

"Y...yes. It was like a - a dagger that stabbed into the colony from the sky," he made a twisting, grinding motion with his fist. "And it..." He paused. There was terror in his trembling voice when he continued. "All of them are gone. All of them. The swarms, frozen - took _all_ of them."

Swarms? "We believe you, Veetor. But who? Who are 'they' Veetor?" He opened his arms, palms upturned. "Who took your friends, the people you worked with?"

He shook his head furiously, and Shepard's face fell.

"You couldn't know. You didn't see."

"Veetor..."

"But I saw everything. I recorded everything. I will show you."

Shepard half stood from his chair as Veetor manipulated the omni-tool, causing pixelated, low-resolution video to appear across the screens on the opposite wall. Security camera footage. It was his eyes that went wide now.

"What the hell...?"

On the screen were alien soldiers in what appeared to be strange, dark, organic-looking armor. Almost insectoid in appearance. They seemed to go about their business almost casually. There were no signs of resistance or struggle. Off to one side were stacked odd looking containers with semi-transparent covers - he didn't recall seeing any such thing on the colony. But where were the colonists? Hiding? He looked at Feshul, who had stepped away from his post at the door to stare at the screens himself.

"I need Mir-" _Veetor._ "...Jacob in here. Please, Feshul."

The guard nodded without hesitation. "Not a problem, commander." He opened the door, and gestured outside with his arm. Jacob strode into the room almost immediately.

"Commander?" He took in Veetor's vacant gaze, and turned to the screens. His face registered surprise. "Commander...those appear to be collectors."

Collectors? "Explain."

"Well," he shifted, keeping his eyes fixed to the screens, "not much is known about them. It is rumored that they have their homeworld somewhere beyond the Omega Four relay."

"What-" he stopped. He hadn't noticed them before since they weren't moving, but he had spotted a cluster of colonists, some appearing to be frozen in place, others lying on the ground. He pointed at the screen. "What, exactly, is going on there?"

Veetor spoke again, in a high voice that sounded very near to panic. "The seeker swarms. They find you, they sting you, freeze you - and then the others take you away..." He tried to shrink down into his chair, wrapping his arms tightly around his lower torso. "They will be back for me...I know it!"

Shepard turned from Veetor, who had begun rocking slightly back and forth, and spoke to Jacob in a low voice. "This raises a good question. Why didn't they take Veetor?"

Jacob shrugged. "Only human colonies have been hit. It isn't like the collectors to be careless, it could be that his envirosuit threw off their scans." Confusion showed on his face. "They usually work for intermediaries, though - slavers, mercs. Or they trade some of their technology for what they need. Who could want this?"

Looking back at the screen, Shepard tried to analyze the actions of the soldiers. Two of the collectors picked up one of the colonists from the ground, and tossed them - not quite carelessly - into one of the empty pods. "They aren't dead, I think. Not yet." It was difficult to tell for sure with the quality of the feed, but he thought he saw some small winged creatures or robots flit across the camera's view from time to time. "Those must be the 'swarms' Veetor mentioned. Sounds like the collectors are using them to round up the colonists, put them into some kind of stasis for transport."

As he stepped back from the screen, Jacob straightened and looked Shepard in the eye. "The Illusive Man will want to hear about this. It's time to get off of this rock."

He nodded. "Agreed. Feshul," he said, turning to the quarian, "I think we are done here. Please let Tali'Zorah know we need top priority on getting that relay on line again so we can signal our ship for pickup."

Feshul nodded, and began to enter sequences into his omni-tool. Tali was probably already at work on the relay, but a reminder that he and his team were still stranded here could be helpful. He grimaced. Somehow, he didn't seem to be on good terms with her anymore. He doubted that he would wake up again with a knife at his throat, and yet...it was as if some line had been crossed when Prazza's stolen shuttle had been destroyed by her hand, blossoming on the horizon. While he understood that the experience would inevitably change her, he was still a little hurt by the way she was distancing herself from him so rapidly, doubting either his ability to control the other members of his team or his own intentions. If nothing else, they had been comrades in arms - and those ties were stronger than many.

He sighed, and lost himself deep in thought as he stared at the terrible images playing across the screens, trying to understand it all as Veetor whimpered quietly in a private hell.

* * *

It took quite some time to bring the relay back online. When the collectors had attacked the colony, all off-world comms went down hard. Tali had been forced to use slow emergency access via landlines to bring all the ground stations back onto the grid, clean them up, and reacquire their respective nodes in the network of satellites in orbit overhead. When the board had finally lit green, they found the communications channels to be surprisingly active.

_Typhon's Pride_ had been deaf, dumb, and blind regarding the status of her away team ever since Prazza's coerced transmission. When the shuttle took off from the surface and entered low orbit, the crew determined that Shepard's party was aboard it due to the transponders present in their confiscated armor. As they closed the gap and repeatedly attempted to hail the craft, puzzling over its initial identification as quarian, the shuttle exploded for no apparent reason - and biblical chaos ensued aboard the Cerberus ship.

At about this time the quarian cruiser reentered the system, returning from its scouting mission wherever it was that Tali and her team were headed next. It noted the expanding debris field, its inability to raise any of the team it had left behind, the nearby Cerberus ship...and jumped to the logical conclusion, challenging _Typhon's Pride_.

The young Cerberus captain, while still in a state of shock, had the presence of mind to respond with what was, in fact, the truth - they had no clue about what had just happened. They had known nothing of any quarians in the system. As for what happened next, perhaps the captain was bolstered by the sense of superiority Cerberus cultivated among its crew. Perhaps he lent too much faith to the notion that all quarian ships were barely space-worthy basket cases, held together by baling wire and fervent oaths to Keelah. In any event, blaming the quarians for the destruction of their own shuttle, implicating them in the deaths of a Cerberus away team, and demanding their immediate surrender did not go down well. At all.

The quarian ship, _Typhon's Pride_ discovered to its great dismay as the cruiser continued its approach to Freedom's Progress, was larger and much better armed. Panicked arguments took place aboard the Cerberus vessel over whether to flee the system or to continue investigating the disappearance of Shepard's team, reflecting the loss of billions of credits and likely the source for the walking papers of everyone aboard. In the end, it had degenerated into a pathetic kind of standoff with the quarians taking over the debris field while the Cerberus ship cowered on the other side of the planet. Yet words continued to be exchanged. When surface communications were finally restored, both Shepard and Tali were needed to smooth ruffled feathers on both sides before they could engineer a compromise.

A decidedly lopsided compromise.

Shepard smiled sourly to himself as he walked alone through the gutted vehicle depot in the moonlight, clutching a bundle of chipped and singed memory boards salvaged from the destroyed cargo mech. Cerberus was certainly getting its fair share of humble pie served today. The night sky was crystal clear, filled with brilliant, unfamiliar stars. A steadily drifting point of light caught his eye as one of the communications satellites crossed in front of the giant crescent of the moon, so large in the sky it felt as if he could leap up and touch it. He shuddered as he stared silently up at it. Although the omnipresent gusting wind had finally died down to a steady breeze from the north, it was even colder than it had been before. He picked up the pace, hurrying to the small storage building standing at the edge of the depot. As he came to the door, he shifted his grip on the boards beneath his arm and elbowed the switch. Most proximity sensors weren't working properly due to the ice. He stepped quickly inside as the door scraped open.

Sighing in relief as warmth enveloped him, he moved to an area he had cleared of empty fertilizer barrels and dumped the boards on the floor, adding them to a small pile from before. He sank to the ground with his back against the wall and removed the heavy gloves. Immediately he reached for a silver thermos filled with bitter, lukewarm coffee - but ignored the ration packs wrapped in plain brown plastic. The rations were flavorless and barely edible, but by unspoken agreement none of his team were willing to raid the homes of the missing colonists for better fare. The quarians didn't have anything they could eat. So his first meal in over twenty-four hours had been some terrible instant coffee and expired, rock-hard rations scavenged from colony security's armory. In a bit less than an hour, a Cerberus shuttle would land anyway - escorted by a fresh squad of quarian marines and tracked by the weapons on the cruiser - and it would all be over.

He stretched his legs and reached for one of the damaged boards, examining it closely to see if it might be possible to extract anything from it. It would be helpful to have more information on the mech's software in case more colonies were being equipped with them. Jacob and Miranda were back at the relay filing preliminary reports for the Illusive Man...under the watchful eyes of quarian guards, of course. It almost didn't need to be said at this point. They seemed to trust Shepard enough to leave him alone in the small building, filled as it was mostly with empty containers. At least it was relatively warm in the room - he had borrowed the grow light idea, and the small space was quickly heated. The electronic hum of the light filled his mind as the minutes went by, Shepard examining the boards and sorting them into two piles: "garbage" and "maybe not garbage."

Some time later, there was an unwelcome cold blast of air as the door opened, sending flakes of snow swirling into the room. Shepard looked up from his work as Tali stepped inside. He was surprised at the momentary flash of annoyance he felt at her presence as the door closed behind her, and their eyes met as she looked down at him. Sitting with the damaged board in one hand, he made no effort to stand up as emotions battled in his mind.

"Well, come right on in," he said lightly, gesturing with the board at the little collection of ration packs. "I'd offer you one, but I think it might kill you."

Tali remained silent, her eyes flicking angrily away at the sardonic comment. She crossed her arms and shifted anxiously, making her suit creak softly in the silence. He couldn't deduce her intent. Sighing, he slowly got to his feet, dusting off the green coveralls. She had at least made an effort to confront him alone. He forced a frozen smile.

"What is it?" He barely avoided adding "sir" to the end as a mocking honorific, inwardly startled at his strong resentment.

Behind the visor, her pale eyes seemed uncertain as they shifted back and forth, and she hadn't lifted her gaze from the ground. Her head was bowed forward slightly, shoulders slumped; her chest rising and falling slowly as she took deep breaths. She suddenly seemed to be very tired. Very young. For long moments he watched her as she gathered herself. Finally, she looked up at him.

"Commander," she started. Still with the 'Commander' business? "Why were such dangerous chemicals stored out in the open?" She gestured towards the door.

His false smile wavered. What kind of question was that? "Uh, the ethanol and biodiesel?"

"Bio...dee-sell?" she tried experimentally.

He nodded. "They use it to fuel the vehicles here. Burn it - internal combustion."

She gave him a dubious stare. "How primitive."

Really? She could apparently give as good as she got. He forced the smile to stay in place.

"Well, Tali'Zorah, growing crops at the east end of nowhere maybe they thought it would be wise to be self-sufficient. The fuel is generated by surplus from the harvests. What would you suggest? You guys have such a good track record with technology."

She shrugged, refusing to rise to the bait although her eyes narrowed slightly. "That is not my concern. I'm wondering more why it is stored above ground."

"I don't know why the tanks weren't buried. But it's good that they weren't, wasn't it?" He glanced pointedly at the pile of charred memory boards.

"Maybe," she said after some hesitation, "if you hadn't started shooting-"

"Is _that_ where you are going with this?" he burst out angrily, "Is it?"

Tali raised her arms in surprise at the explosion. He pressed on.

"I made a decision, a bad one. It happens. It wasn't a damned calculated insult or anything like that." He was leaning aggressively towards her. "Get over it. You've made your point. You're independent, you can take care of yourself. You can take a two-story mech down blindfolded. Stop treating me and my team like geth."

"I didn't mean to-" she stammered, suddenly confused, her hands restless. "But-"

"But _what?_" he nearly shouted back, fists clenched at his side. Tali's eyes had narrowed to slits, her hesitancy washed away by indignation.

"So you think you are treated unfairly?" she snarled, jabbing her finger accusingly, eyes glinting with angry frustration. "If you hadn't come here, I wouldn't be bringing back seven empty suits but seven live marines! And this Cerberus agent Lawson - you can't even keep one woman in check?"

The bitter words stung. And yet, past the initial shock, Shepard felt his rage subsiding. She was struggling to cope with the losses more than he had imagined. She was probably more upset with herself than with him.

This was going to make handling Veetor seem like a cakewalk.

"Tali," he said firmly, "you know that isn't fair. It's true," he granted, raising his hand to halt her protest, "that I probably complicated things. More than I would have ever wished to. But Prazza would have acted whether I was here or not. Maybe not today; maybe not tomorrow. Eventually, though, he would have acted on his ambition."

"Yes, everything worked out so well. Thank you."

"You're going to have to learn to deal with this, Tali," he warned, "right now I'm an easy outlet. I understand, and...I'm here. But-"

"Are you saying this is my fault?" she whispered. Tali looked away from him, her hands balled into fists. She stood, the lines of her body taut as if ready to flee the small room, as if he would attempt to strike her.

This time, Shepard let his empathy for her guide him as he stepped forward and lay his hand on her shoulder. She flinched as if it burned, but did not pull away.

"No, Tali. If there is anyone to blame in this, it's Prazza." He felt her muscles tense beneath his hand, and he hardened his grip as she seemed about to turn away. "Tali'Zorah. No. It was Prazza."

"But if I hadn't..." she rasped in a quaking voice, "...when you were there, after I thought you were gone...if I-"

"He would have found another excuse, another time. Tali, you are a good leader. You will be a great one. Things happen that will be out of your control. You-" his vision darkened around the edges as he recalled his dead. "...there will be more losses," he resumed more quietly, "and if you blame yourself for all of them - you can't. You'll wither away. The only thing you can do is be the best leader you can be, anticipate as much as you can, save as many as you can. If you're able to do that..."

You'll be a better leader than me.

Abruptly, she raised her hands to cover her visor, still looking away from him. Shepard thought she was just trying to collect herself until he felt her shoulders hitch suddenly. He froze, heart pounding. Was she...? She made a small, sharp gasp, trying to choke back tears.

He gently squeezed her shoulder. She reached across her body and lay her hand on top of his own, quietly sobbing. He didn't understand the reaction. Had he been wrong? Before he could spend too much time thinking about it, she removed his hand. She didn't quite meet his gaze as she stepped into him, pressing her head into his shoulder. Half stunned, he folded his arms around her. He had never held her before. Her envirosuit was cool beneath his hands, alternating textures of fabric and tough composite plasticine surfaces as he shifted them uncertainly on her back and shoulders. The patterned cowl rubbed between his chin and the rigid helmet beneath - strong, silken fabric.

"It's not your fault," he repeated, trying to channel reassurance into her trembling body as they stood in the awkward embrace. He simply held her for a time, feeling her tension gradually melt away, his own bewilderment at her abrupt transformation.

Tali was gently disentangling herself from him. He let his arms fall as the room seemed to materialize again around him; empty barrels and cracked circuit boards, coffee and rations toxic for a quarian. She clasped her hands over her chest, taking rapid breaths as she backed slowly away from him. She shook her head.

"I'm sorry, Shepard. It's just...this whole thing. I've written four letters to the families of those marines," her voice fell to a whisper, "there are still three more."

He simply nodded, looking at her. "What did you tell them?" he asked softly. She looked up at him gradually. When their eyes met, he felt the heat of her anger. But it wasn't directed at him. Nor at herself.

"That they fought valiantly and died honorably as marines in the service of the Fleet. In the service of their people."

He held her gaze. "Remember that. Remember them."

Tali didn't flinch or look away. He felt that he was looking at his equal. Maybe more.

"I will."

They stood a couple of paces apart from each other in shared contemplation. Shepard didn't want to make assumptions about her thoughts, but his own were far more confused than the rigidly set features of his face might outwardly suggest.

What had been the wellspring for that surge of resentment earlier?

Although he had no doubt that Prazza's actions had led to the disastrous outcome of Tali's mission, he knew that in many ways she had every right to accuse him. His team had landed right in the middle of her mission and been quickly captured, giving Prazza the opportunity and the leverage he had been waiting for. The marines, the shuttle, being stripped of her command - all basically a result of his incompetent stumbling on Freedom's Progress.

And the mech. He had fired on it without any kind of plan, nearly causing an already deadly situation to spiral completely out of control. He knew it was a stupid thing to do even as he pulled the trigger.

Wait. Then why...?

It had been about to turn on Tali's observation team. Probably. That's why.

But if that was the case...he had sent Jacob to bait a rocket not two minutes later. It didn't stand up to scrutiny. He frowned, thinking it through, not noticing Tali's eyes suddenly widening in a realization of her own.

Shepard groaned inwardly, raising a hand to his perspiration dampened brow as a dull ache throbbed at the front of his skull. There was an answer just out of reach. It came to him incomplete, as a question.

Would he do it again?

The easy answer was no, he wouldn't. Experience had shown that it had been a terrible tactical move. The mech had overpowered him, and with no backup plan it had been sheer luck that things had been in place to allow him to take it down. The sensible thing would have been to pull back, abandoning the objective until something else had come to light. There would have been safer ways of distracting the mech. And yet, the reaction had been visceral. Instinctive. When all of his training had screamed out against it.

He would do it again. He gasped as the barrier seemed to collapse in his mind, and he remembered..."why."

He remembered how she had stayed with him after the crushing loss on Virmire. She filled the empty space left by Kaidan with understanding and acceptance, soothing his self-doubt, keeping him focused on the tasks that still lay ahead.

She had been there when he emerged from the rubble on the Citadel, her armor scuffed and pocked with brilliant blue scars of battle. He remembered the way she tried to hide her tears from him, the way Garrus had gently turned her aside as he returned to his team in tormented triumph.

Her innermost secret she had shared freely with him. He knew how difficult it must have been to hold onto alone, and how much more difficult to trust someone enough to give it to them. Prazza had laid her pain bare for all to see as a cruel parting gift, but only Shepard knew all the reasons for the depth of her anger.

He remembered the shimmering pale eyes, looking down at him with concern. Hands gently holding his head off of the icy, hard ground. The knowledge that he never wanted to lose the woman he trusted enough to share his own secrets with.

And the blood drained from his face as he realized what he was feeling.

"Commander Shepard? Do you copy? Hello?"

He started at the noise from the shoulder pocket. Tali was looking at him oddly. His fingers trembled as he removed the small communicator.

"W...copy. Go ahead."

"Commander! I really wish our gear hadn't been on that shuttle, these radios are awful. We've been trying to raise you for a couple of minutes now!"

It was Jacob. He felt his face flush as he turned to face away from Tali.

"...yeah, no kidding. Ah...what's up?"

There was a brief pause. "Sir, we've got confirmation that our shuttle is inbound under escort. Fifteen minutes."

He nodded to himself. "Got it. I'll head back to the relay. Thanks, Jacob. Out."

Shepard thumbed the transmitter off and slipped it back into the pocket as he turned to face Tali with a tentative smile. "That's my ride...I should go."

Tali nodded slowly, shifting nervously as she stood apart from him, eyes furtively glancing away.

"Well...Feshul will have slipped Veetor's omni-tool data to Jacob," she said quickly, "we can't afford to appear to be cooperating with Cerberus too openly - but I hope it will help you."

If he didn't know any better, he thought as he watched her seem to look over her envirosuit, tugging the cowl back into place - she seemed suddenly self-conscious. He only nodded as his mind urgently attempted to remember every detail of what he was seeing - her palely illuminated eyes, the way the grow light reflected in her visor...the lines and seams of her suit, the energy of her movement, the tension seemingly coiled in her stance.

"Thanks...I should go," he repeated dumbly, pulling on the heavy gloves and raising the hood. He managed to catch her eye, and he smiled widely, nodding in her direction. "Good luck on your mission, Tali'Zorah. Wherever it may be that you're going."

She just stood there, suddenly still, wavering slightly. He chewed on his lower lip.

"Listen, Tali...when your mission is over-"

"I don't know how long it will take," she interrupted, her voice a rush. "it's...I mean, I can't because Cerberus...but it's not you, I mean I'd love to but I-"

He smiled. "Maybe when you've finished. I know you need to fulfill the mission given to you by the Fleet."

Tali nodded quickly. "Yes. Shepard, whatever happens - it's good to have you back."

She nodded once more, and surprised him by suddenly turning, striking the switch for the door with her palm, and striding quickly from the building. He stood there in the middle of the room mulling over his thoughts for a few minutes before gathering up the memory boards and heading after her in the darkness to the relay. As he did, the visage of Private Stenham, grinning toothily up at him from his seat on a cargo hammock, oddly entered his mind's eye. He felt his mouth turn up into a wry grin.

An enlightened society, indeed.


End file.
